Timeline
by mesohorany
Summary: Sam and Dean have had an uncommon, intricate bond from the beginning. It's about to get whole lot more complicated. WINCEST Sam/Dean.
1. Chapter 1

This is set during Season One's search for John. Not sure how many chapters there will be yet! Also posted to a href=" /works/686334"Archive of Our Own/a. This story contains **WINCEST**, so if you no likey, you no readey :)

(Now)

When Dean comes for him - bitter, swearing to God he'll do anything but beg for his little brother back - Sam is wary as a feral cat, all mistrustful orb-huge eyes and electrified hackles, instinct backing him into a corner for safety. His body language declares that he didn't ask for this; that he is supposed to be done with this, so what the hell are you doing here, Dean.

The lie? Dean doesn't know. How easily could he do this himself? How many times has he ventured on a hunt without John and lived to brag about it? He doesn't need his brother to help him chase their reckless father around America, doesn't need Sam to hold his hand or be that reassuring voice when he doesn't know where next to look.

The conversation:

"I can't do this alone."

Sam says, all scoffing disbelief, "Yes, you can." Calling bullshit like he always does.

Dean screws up his mouth, fixes his eyes on some harmless point to the left of Sam's derisive eyes. "Yeah. But I don't want to."

The truth? It's not that he needs Sam to help him track John. It's simply that he needs Sam. What really burrows under his skin and forces his eyes open at night is that he doesn't know why.

(Then)

They are nine and thirteen and Sam is smart, too smart, always alert, always asking thousands of questions. This is good when John is teaching him about what they're currently tracking. This is bad when he gazes into his older brother's mortified eyes and asks mildly why Dean's bed always squeaks so much right before he makes that noise at night. After this incident, Dean, constantly furious that he still has to bunk down with his curious little brother during this most awkward stage of life, tries to constrain himself to jacking off in the shower. For a while that is a beautiful solution, until one day Sam comes sailing into the bathroom right as Dean is slammed up against the shower wall, halfway through a glorious orgasm and helpless from stopping that bitten-off moan from pouring out of his throat.

_Leave it, leave it_, he prays, but of course Sam, who has always possessed a total, baffling, rather concerning lack of shame, has to peel back the shower curtain and look into Dean's clouded eyes and say, "So THIS is where you do it now."

"Fuck, Sammy," Dean says weakly, thinking, _are you serious_ but too strung-out and spent to be truly enraged, "There's this awesome thing called privacy. It's in the dictionary. Look it up."

Sam's bronzed, freckly cheeks glow dusky sunset red when he mutters, "Sorry," and practically sprints from the room, leaving Dean to wonder first where that startling absence of embarrassment has gone, then, all in a rush, how the hell he feels bad about what just happened.

(Then)

Sometimes, when they are caged up in the ass crack of nowhere with explicit instructions from John to _stay here until I get back_, Dean is the only person Sam sees for days. Too frequently they are surrounded by untamed, unpopulated country, giant expanses of it, the deficiency of life enough to give Sam itchy headaches. He develops the unfortunate habit of gnawing on his lower lip until it's swollen and ripe-raw, and before they go to bed each night Dean holds Sam's head still and glosses an oily scoop of Vaseline over the small wounds that open on his brother's mouth. The taste of Dean's finger prevails over the strange flavor of the salve and Sam lives for it, the attention Dean shows him in that instant, concern fluttering in his softened eyes as he concentrates on covering every inch of Sam's lip.

"You got to stop doing this, Sammy," he chides as he does this, rough voice sweetened by the worry threaded through his words.

And Sam responds, "I know," every night, like a congregation chanting a prayer back to its pastor. The things they say are a script and long ago he memorized his lines.

Even when John is away on a trip, they share a room. Dean knows how ridiculous this is, especially because he can always find new ways to bitch about sharing when he has no choice, but the sole occasion he tries taking his father's room in his absence it doesn't end well. At two o'clock in the morning Sam's high sharp howl rips Dean from his sleep and he ends up wound around his brother all night, frantically stroking Sam's hair and saying anydamnthing to make that nightmare-induced terror seep from Sam's glass eyes. Even at nine the younger boy is thin as a whip and lanky and it takes all of Dean to wrap him up completely, their limbs joining in seamless lines as Sam digs fingers into Dean's spine. His face is mashed into his brother's chest and Dean can feel the fiery lines of Sam's tears as they spill through his ancient black AC/DC shirt. It is probably this moment, or maybe a thousand others joined together, that makes him wholly realize that Sam is the most important thing in the universe.

Sam is like air, he is embedded in Dean's heartbeat, he is Dean's pulse and his breath. Essential. Since Sam was born Dean has been the closest thing to a constant in his life and he means to keep it that way. If Sam can't have a normal life at least he can have one thing, one person, he can always rely on. Dean wants that for his little brother so badly because he doesn't know what it's like. John is truant enough not to be considered dependable, and to exacerbate things Dean has unfairly been expected to be an adult since the day his mother was killed. It's fucked him to hell in the head and he isn't gonna let that happen to Sam, who is not only clever enough to be whatever he wants but somehow astonishingly naive-sweet and kind despite his unorthodox upbringing. He is a lovely contrast to the sober, bitter child that Dean became in the aftermath of their mother's death.

Dean would do anything to make sure he stays that way.

(Now)

Sam's face has changed.

When he abandoned his family for normalcy, for a future, the only thing that allowed Dean to function was the thought that his brother might, in time, heal. But a few hours in Sam's company make him think otherwise. The youngest Winchester carries a kind of sour heaviness in his expression; a persistent downward pull at the edges of his bitten mouth, a tenseness to his jaw. Sam's eyes, always so soft as a child, have waxed angry, caustic; contempt slashed all through them. They challenge everything even when he does not speak a word, and Dean hates it - partly because he blames himself for his brother's loss of innocence, mostly because he doesn't have this new Sam learned from the inside out.

There are countless miles before them and countless miles behind them and the road is neverending, but what does eventually end is the way Sam can't seem to smile anymore. With each day he pushes behind him, each successful hunt he survives, he regains a fraction of himself, until the harsh lines of his face begin to ease back to normal. The first time Dean sees that incandescent grin crack Sam's stoic mouth wide open he almost keels over. It aches to know that he rarely appreciates joy like he does when he sees it emanating from Sam's face.

Sometimes Dean discovers Sam watching him with an expression in his eyes that can't be described, and that look does lethal things to Dean's heartbeat.

(Now)

They are in Copperas Cove, Texas, dealing with a particularly nasty spirit while trying to stave off incapacitation by extreme heat. Dean makes the executive decision that excessive time spent under the blistering sun is out of the question, so much of their business is done post-dusk, when the temperature drops from unbearable to merely uncomfortable. Sam says this is ideal because after all they're called things that go bump in the _night_, and Dean loves him for making them both feel less lazy.

The affected house - maybe a more suitable word is _castle_, Sam decides during a preliminary scope of the place - is unlike anything the Winchesters have previously dealt with. It is tucked neatly into the very back of a gorgeous, stunningly gargantuan estate, but where its incredible size matches the layout of the acreage around it, the architecture cruelly contrasts the surrounding beauty. Much of the building is carpeted with wild foliage, green fingers of vine ribboning in unintentional decoration over five stories of charcoal stone. The front door is huge, iron, and finished with a brass knocker; the windows like towering, rectangular eyes. From the left side of the building juts a lone turret that surpasses the height of the tallest floor by the tiniest of margins. On three of the house's sides stand unchecked woods, and the unfortunate proximity of the trees obscures direct sunlight from the windows at most hours of the day. It is a structure that could be akin to a fairytale castle if satisfactorily cared for, but the word that comes to Sam's mind as he surveys it now is _terrifying_.

"Well, this is fuckin' creepy," says Dean in a conversational tone of voice, as he and Sam stand gawking at the house from a safe spot on the front lawn.

Sam's lips twitch out of their solemn line. "Yeah. But we've seen worse."

"No. Dude." Dean is shaking his head, all set grim mouth and round marble eyes. "This place screams haunted. It _smells_ haunted. Who the hell buys a house like this?"

"Old rich guy?" suggests Sam, eyeing the brass knocker on the door. "My guess is it was inherited. No one sane would spend money on this."

"I swear to God I've seen a house like this in _Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark_ or some shit," grumbles Dean ominously, and Sam grins.

"You read that?"

Dean senses him looking, meets his mirthful eyes, frowns. "Yeah, so?"

Sam's eyebrows crook up. "Really? You?"

"Yes," says Dean slowly, like one plus one is two. His eyebrows are bunched together in a way that is meant to convey snarling anger but to Sam is just precious. "You did too, punk, I got it from you."

"I know," replies Sam patiently. "I'm just surprised. I didn't know you read anything but car magazines."

Dean makes a noise that declares that his involvement in this discussion is finished, screws up his face, rams Sam hard across the shoulder as he skulks past him towards the mansion. "Shut up. C'mon."

It takes them a couple of days to fully enmesh themselves into the situation. Eventually they determine that, for once, the family being pestered has no connection to the spirit; they're just unfortunate enough to be the inhabitants of a house that's been haunted for decades. Sam and Dean don't trouble themselves trying to bullseye the exact cause of the triggered activity; they know what they have to do, and they take care of business with brutal efficiency. Hunts like these are more or less routine: not a breeze, but neither are they difficult. Somehow Sam's absence from the game hasn't diminished his proficiency and though they both come away from the banishment with a bruise or three Dean is impressed with his brother's ability to improvise at the speed of a sprinting cheetah.

Afterward they are in the Impala rolling the hell out of Dodge by way of a grimy dirt road, arms swaying out open windows, and Sam says, "So. Are we staying here tonight, or bailing?"

Dean checks the time on the dashboard. Nine seventeen. "I don't know, but I'm freakin' starved."

"Me too." Sam flicks irritatedly at an itch on his nose. "I mean, the hotel's all right."

"They all look the same, Sammy," says Dean, glancing sideways at him. "That hasn't hit you yet?"

"Guess I'm still out of practice." Sam's words are distorted by a yawn that pulls his mouth impossibly wide, and Dean is accosted by a random memory (_look, Dean, I can fit my fist in my mouth, bet you can't_, when Sam is seven years old, and why God why does that make Dean wonder flickeringly if Sam can still boast about that talent?) before he is fighting a yawn himself.

"Admit it, you're just tired," he accuses, gentle, wishing he could turn his brain inside out to smack the image of Sam's voluminous mouth from the inside of his eyelids.

"That, and we've got nowhere we have to be," reminds Sam. "Copperas Cove is as good a town as any."

In the faintly lit parking lot of a local Dairy Queen they slouch on the hood of the Impala, scarfing second-rate burgers and milkshakes. For maybe the third time since their reunion Sam is too hungry to talk while he eats, and Dean is mildly stunned to find that he misses the sound of his brother's aimless chatter.

"Quiet, Sammy," he observes, as he pauses to pour a fresh packet of ketchup over his fries.

Fleetingly Sam glances into Dean's eyes, smiles. "Talking slows me down." He unfolds a clean napkin in front of him and Dean grins when he realizes how seriously Sam takes his warnings: _you get shit on my car, I kill you_.

"Yeah." Dean looks out in the general direction of the Dairy Queen, not seeing it. "What are you thinking we look for next?"

Sam gulps down a huge bite of burger. "I dunno, something challenging, man. I'm getting bored."

"Tough guy."

"Comes with the territory." Sam shrugs. "You good with that?"

"You know I am," answers Dean, feeling that sweet onslaught of pride flooding his veins. "We were trained for badder sons of bitches than this last gig."

"Understatement." Sam snorts, licks ketchup from his fingers. Dean tries not to watch too closely.

After a while they stretch out on their backs to finish their shakes. They are angled so none of the lights in the small lot are directly obstructing the canvas of indigo above them and the absent thought railroading through Sam's mind is that if this is not contentment, then nothing is.

(Then)

Sam is six years old, a champion tree-climber, but on one particular day his footing abandons him and he sails down from a branch that is dangerously high. Dean gets to him first, his eyes big and afraid, and clamps Sam's hand as he shrieks down at the furious, ragged scarlet gash on his thigh. John carries his youngest son inside and tapes him up with some gauze, but the fix is temporary and soon they are making the grim five-mile trek to the ER for some stitches. When the nurse pierces his wound with an anesthetic Sam screams and it makes Dean's heart shatter.

"You're gonna be okay, Sammy," he chants as the numbness begins to colonize the pain in Sam's leg. "Gonna be just fine." And Sam believes him because Dean is always right.

That night at dinner, when John isn't looking, Dean slips Sam half of his slice of cherry pie, and he lets him watch cartoons until bedtime without a single complaint. When Sam wakes up in the middle of the night, trying hard not to snuffle but helpless against the loss of anesthesia, Dean gets him a glass of freezing water to help him swallow down his pain medicine and talks to him about angels until Sam is dreaming again, dried tears trailing down his round cheeks.

Dean is not really sure where along the fucked-up path of his life that innocence abandoned him.

(Then)

It's hot, so fucking hot, and Sam is almost glad that Bobby and John have left them behind today despite the fact that he has to put up with Dean's ceaseless bitching (_I'm _old_ enough, dammit. This is fucking unbelievable_). Being stuck at the house they're staying at means he can spread himself over the cold kitchen floor with ice cubes stacked on his feverish skin and not move half an inch all day if he doesn't want to.

He is fourteen. Dean is days away from eighteen. Their boundaries are hazy, fluctuating, and Sam isn't really sure why they exist if they never talk about them.

Dean runs every day. Sam is too lazy to give a damn about staying in shape yet and he just laughs at his brother's ruby cheeks when he comes crawling inside from ninety degree heat. Except today it's different. Today Dean has neglected to throw his shirt back on, and Sam's mouth has inexplicably decided to imitate a desert.

Panting, Dean falls against the kitchen counter, toweling cascades of sweat from his forehead with his discarded t-shirt. It's been a long time since Sam has actually looked at his brother half-naked and now that thing that's wrong with his brain, that thing that allows him to find Dean attractive, is acting up again. He slices his eyes away determinedly.

After a minute, when Dean has his breathing back under control, he says, "Don't you ever move?"

Sam looks at him with that reflex teenage insolence dripping through his eyes. "Nope."

"Fuckin' lazyass, you." Dean's face is half snarl, half smile as he tosses his shirt in the general direction of the living room. When he crosses over to the refrigerator Sam tries not to drink in the way the muscles of his brother's back undulate gracefully, discernibly against his freckled amber-olive skin.

"It's too hot to do anything," says Sam.

"I just did something, didn't I?" banters Dean mildly, digging in the freezer for an ice cube. "It is hot though, I'm dying."

"That's cause you run at the absolute worst time of the day, moron," says Sam acerbically, rolling his eyes even though Dean can't see.

"But now, Sammy," replies Dean, turning around and shaking his ice cube at Sam to punctuate his point, "now is when I have the most energy." He flashes that charismatic grin of his, slaps the little square of ice against his chest, and the moan he makes upon contact makes Sam's belly roil with heat. The younger boy knots his fingers into a fist, lets his fingernails punch half-moon holes in his slick palms.

"You know it's strange," he says, watching the lazy content way Dean rubs the ice over his neck, down his arms. "Now is when I have the least energy." Without consciously understanding what he's doing he gets up and lopes over to the freezer to grab some fresh cubes for himself.

"Huh," says Dean, mock-considering. "I thought you just forgot how to move." The ice is turning to lukewarm water over his skin, rivulets racing down into the band of his shorts, and Sam is killing himself keeping his eyes away from the angles of Dean's narrow hips. He scowls heavily up at his brother, dark tumultuous emotion crashing through his eyes.

"I'm up now, aren't I?"

"Only cause you have to be, punk," returns Dean, cheerily oblivious of his little brother's discomfort. "_You_ ran out of ice." He reaches back into the tray for a fresh handful, but Sam thieves it from his grip, smiling a little now.

"And you're taking it all." His hands are itching and with something akin to terror he realizes he's dying to touch the lines of water arrowing down Dean's stomach. It's the heat. It's got to be the heat.

"Because I'm in _pain_, Sammy, don't you realize how brutal it is out there?" whines Dean, but his eyes are glinting with laughter.

"You have got to quit calling me that," growls Sam, and it registers in Dean's startled mind that his voice has grown very deep of late. He is still focused on this unnerving development and thus mindlessly does as Sam bids when he says, "Turn around."

Dean's skin is hot, too hot, and Sam can almost feel the agitated blood broiling beneath his fingers as he presses gentle palmfuls of ice into his brother's back. Hissing, Dean arches, tense everywhere with the sudden temperature change over massive areas of his body, but Sam keeps his hands still so Dean can easily acclimatize and soon he feels the tightness under his fingers going slack. Already the ice is starting to dissolve; Sam's hands are wetter than they should be as he begins to blanket Dean's back with cold.

Dean feels his brother rubbing patterns over his skin and turns his head a little, heartbeat whirring. "Sam-"

"Are you wearing sunscreen?" demands Sam, the intensity in his voice surprising Dean into cursory muteness. "Because this looks like a fucking sunburn to me."

"I." Dean clears his throat, clears his head. "Does it look like there's sunscreen anywhere in this house?"

"I don't know, you tell me," says Sam flippantly, amazed that he can keep his voice so even when his fingers are trailing the rungs of Dean's spine. The smell of Dean, musk and heavy sweat and that new oceany deodorant he's been wearing, is thick in the air around him and Sam has to fight so hard to restrain himself from sinking his face between Dean's shoulder blades and just breathing him. "You should buy some, you're gonna look fifty when you're twenty-five."

"Okay, Mom," rasps Dean, but he's smiling. He might be Sam's protector but the kid is always, always taking care of him in return.

"Someone's got to do it," says Sam, and there is such sadness in his voice that Dean is cowed. That feeling of melancholy lingers for all of five seconds before his mind is again fixated on Sam's huge hands working over every inch of his shoulders, the backs of his hips, the slight indent at the end of his spine. It feels so good it almost hurts and without realizing it Dean is purring intermittently, deep in his throat, faint.

Sam hears him and he is done. The ice has long since melted into Dean's skin and he is out of excuses. He lets his hands come to rest on Dean's shoulders, presses his face briefly into Dean's neck, breathes and feels his brother stiffen against him. For a precarious, shattering, unreal second neither of them moves, then Sam backs up before he tastes the consequences of his actions. Before Dean can burst away from him and make things trickier than they already are.

Dean half turns, his eyes hunting Sam's, and their gazes fuse for a long, long moment. Sam has the presence of mind to understand that there is a hot hunger licking through Dean's eyes before the older boy blinks it away, and then he's announcing that "I'm, yeah. I'm gonna take a shower," and walking away at a speed close to a jog.

One thing that Dean never admits to _anyone_: what he thinks about in that shower as he's trembling through an orgasm so powerful it has him folded to his knees, gasping and swearing and hating himself for the image burned like a brand behind his eyes.

(Now)

Every now and again Sam wakes up to see the sun rise. Normally he'll sit on the hood of the Impala, impossibly long legs crooked up against his chest, one hand thatched back through his hair as he watches the sky blend pink and gold and hesitant orange. Not once since he's been back with Dean has his brother stirred to watch with him; he isn't even sure if Dean knows that he does this. Today, however, as he's slinking back inside the motel room all sun-blind and faintly euphoric, Dean's voice assaults him from the corner of the room.

"The fuck you doing?" he asks, peeking woozily up from under his comforter. His voice is the furthest thing from angry, just fuzzy and sleepy and curious in that gruff way of his.

"Sunrise, man," answers Sam, crawling a little with embarrassment because he figures Dean will think him a complete pansy for enjoying such a girlish thing. "It's beautiful today."

Dean sits up, scrubs a hand over his eyes, groans a little as he raises his arms over his tousled head.

"Time is it?"

Sam's eyes dart to the clock on the bedstand, squarish neon numbers imprinted on his corneas. "Six oh three."

"Fuck." Dean laughs a little, but it's a bitter thing, drained of humor. "Why am I awake?" He pushes the covers from his legs and Sam's pulse glitches like it always does when he sees his brother in those stupid black boxer briefs.

Dragging, Dean reaches down for last night's discarded jeans, belts them around his sharply tapered hips. Doesn't bother with a shirt. Sam's mouth is dry; his tongue doesn't work, but somehow he knows what Dean wants when he says, "Let's go see what all this fuss is about."

"You missed the best part," argues Sam weakly, but Dean just curves his mouth up, smirking as he maneuvers past Sam out the door.

"Maybe tomorrow, then," he shoots over his shoulder, and Sam's eyes are pasted to the tiny canyons and lines and ridges of his back, all power. When they were younger Dean was lithe, skinny-strong like a soccer player; now he's more solid across the shoulders, brawnier through his arms. Not someone it would be wise to start a fight with, though Sam gets at him all the time for stress relief and maybe just to feel the way Dean's body matches up with his own, all those coils of limbs, elbows and knees skewered everywhere. It makes Sam ludicrously happy to wrestle like that because Dean is never so real to him as when they're throwing each other around, sparring for the joy of it. It's the only time Dean really lets Sam touch him. The only chance he'll ever have to get that close.

They slouch up against the car, scrutinizing the dawn sky for a few minutes. Dean's plum of a mouth is bunched up and his eyes are mirroring the spectrum of color before them, and Sam swears to _God_ that he's gonna pay attention to the sunrise again, if only Dean would stop being so distracting. He realizes his jaw is clenched up like a cramp and exhales, willing himself to (_calm down with that shit_) relax.

"Not bad," muses Dean after a while, and Sam recognizes awe in his voice. "You get up for this every day?"

Sam laughs. "No. Fuck no. Just every once in a while when I'm not on a sleep deficit."

"Good, cause I was gonna call you a frigging psycho if you did." That trademark smarmy grin bolts across Dean's face as his eyes hook to Sam's. "Seriously though. Not bad."

"It was better earlier," says Sam, thinking, except you weren't here.

"Well, next time wake me up, chowderhead." Dean yawns and Sam has really got to go to therapy to quash his obsession with Dean's forever-bruised mouth. "Can we go back to sleep now?"

"You can. I'm up." But even before he says it Sam is questioning himself; maybe sleep is the answer to all of his puzzles.

"Uh huh. I don't believe that for a second. Come on, bro." Dean jerks his head, eyes coaxing at Sam for a moment before he leads the way back into the room. The second the door clicks shut behind them Sam is stripping back down to his sleep clothes; right now the enveloping darkness is even more gorgeous than the dawn.

"Let's not set an alarm," he throws out, clambering back into bed, all cracking knees and swallowed yawns.

"Thought you were up," says Dean mildly, and in his voice there is almost a _tease_. Sam is clobbered.

"Well, I'm down again," he replies, grinning, his eyes drifting closed so easily. "See you in a bit."

There is a pause, within which Sam has already begun to flow back into dreams, then Dean says, fond, "Night, Sammy."

But maybe he dreamed that, too.


	2. Chapter 2

(Now)

"So this is what I'm thinking," Dean says, straightforward. They've been racing through article after useless article on the internet for about two hours now and his eyes feel like they're about to crumble to dust. "We throw a dart at a map of the United States and pray to God that there's a gig somewhere near where it lands."

Sam chuckles. "You want to take a break?"

"_Yes_," gasps Dean, dropping his face into wide-open palms. "Computers give me a headache."

"Get used to them, bro." Sam closes the browser, pushes back from the desk. "You wanna just start driving, see where we end up?"

"Tempting," weighs Dean, "but you know as well as I do how tiny the chances of finding something worthwhile are when we have no aim."

"Yeah." Sam sighs. "I dunno, though. Sometimes it's nice to not have a goal."

Dean looks at him. "Dude, you have no idea how weird it is to hear you say that."

Sam gives a crooked smile. "Why?"

"I dunno. You used to be like, let's plan everything a month in advance, and now you're like, why do we have to know where we're going?" Dean shakes his head. "It's just different."

"Good different or bad different?" asks Sam, knowing Dean's clumsy description of him is accurate. He's so much more reckless now than he ever was as a teenager - shoot first and ask questions later, as Dean likes to say.

Dean shrugs, nonchalant, but it's a ruse. "Good different. So. We need darts and a wall map."

The instant swap of subjects doesn't go over Sam's head, but he disregards it with just a little comma-quirk of a smile as recognition. "Or, genius, we could close our eyes and point."

"Spoilsport." Dean's mouth is straight as wire and his brow is gathered together but his tone is goodnatured. "Where's the atlas?"

They scrap over who gets to pick the destination; eventually, Dean wins best of three in rock-paper-scissors and pulls the map triumphantly over in front of him. Sam wants to smack that cocky grin off his face, wonders why it matters so much, but it does because they're brothers and they fight about everything and it's never okay to be second best to Dean. He scowls when his brother meets his eyes and he's not even paying attention when Dean slams his finger down on the page.

Both of them knock each other's shoulders aside trying to see; Sam pulls Dean's hand away to get a clearer look and Dean flinches, jumpy. It's too big of a deal when they touch and that's why it basically never happens.

"Definitely lost it there, dude, good job," he says, heavy sarcasm before Sam can shoot him a questioning look.

"So we'll do it again." Sam claims the map, guards it selfishly with elbows on both sides of the paper. "My turn."

Dean rolls his eyes so hard he's surprised they don't get lodged in the back of his head, but he gestures for Sam to go ahead, so gleefully Sam blind-jabs at the page and this time he comes up with a real answer.

"Delaware?" asks Dean, unimpressed. "Seriously? How can you suck this badly at a game of chance?"

Sam elbows him roughly. "Dude, it's a beach. You love the beach. We haven't been to one in forever."

"We haven't been to a northeastern beach ever," reminds Dean. "California's way better." Like it's as simple as the grass is green, the sky is blue.

It's Sam's turn to roll his eyes to the ceiling. "A beach is a beach," he says firmly. "We're going, and you're gonna love it."

Dean mashes his lips together in that recalcitrant way of his. "I better."

(Then)

When Sam is three years old John takes him to the ocean for the first time. Dean is seven and every bit of stoked, buckled in the back beside Sam in his little carseat, rambling on about building sandcastles and jumping the waves and boogie-boarding because Sammy, it's the coolest thing _ever_. Sam stares at his big brother with huge ochre eyes and John, watching Dean gesticulate zealously in the rearview mirror, thinks that they're gonna turn out alright.

The three Winchester boys spend the day ankle-deep in calm surf, cerulean sky swooping down to meet eternal miles of diamondlike jade sea. Every time the tide crashes over him Sam screeches with infectious laughter, knitting himself to his father's side to right himself before plunging fearlessly back in. Dean is coordinating their jump time, one-two-three-NOW, and Sam starts trying to mimic the count but his timing is off. Dean rolls his eyes, grins, looks at John like _can you believe this moron_, except there is all the love in the world behind his expression.

They end the day with boardwalk fries smothered in vinegar and ketchup, milkshakes for Dean and John, a kiddie cone of chocolate ice cream for Sam. It ends up daubed all over his mouth and drips down his small fingers; when he is done Dean cleans him up with patience well beyond his age, swiping a napkin over Sam's pudgy cheeks. On the car ride home Sam swoons into heavy sleep and Dean isn't long after him.

It's been an entirely normal day. Sometimes even hunters need those.

(Now)

Somewhere near Memphis, close enough to the city's heart to call it the outskirts, they stop to get some sleep. It's one twenty-three in the morning and thousands of white chalkish dashes are tattooed on the flip side of Dean's eyelids, Sam's face ghoul-pale and automatic. Dean pays for a room while Sam stands outside lined up against the car, a too-tall shadow in Dean's peripherals, eyes turned up to the motel sign. A blur of neon against coal sky, VACANCY.

It's too late and Dean's guard is malfunctioning, chipped away by hours of smooth affectionate banter, these days so rare for the Winchester boys. Normally car rides come equipped with at least one little fight about fuck-knows-what but today it's different, today Dean enjoys listening to Sam jabber enthusiastically about what lies ahead of them, how he's heard Delaware described as nothing but picturesque. Dean smirks at the word but it's all tenderness and his lack of a jab earns him a sunshine beam from his little brother. That smile makes Dean's nerves itch, makes him feel like he can sense every vein in his body, every tunnel that transports his warm careening blood.

They are bolted inside their hotel room by the time Dean returns to himself, eyes hopping over to check Sam at the sink, rinsing layers of grime off his face with cold, cold water. His lines are illuminated by the unforgiving glow of the light above him but somehow it doesn't curtail his effect. As soon as Dean finishes forming this thought he's wondering what in the hell his brain is supposed to mean by _that_, Sam's _effect_.

"Hey."

Dean snaps his head up, caught. "What?" Clearing his throat.

"You want the shower first?" Sam's eyes are oblivious, only as wide as they always are, but Dean feels intensely scrutinized. It makes him crazy.

"Nah, man, you go." He chucks his bag on the bed closest to the window, wraps his fingers around his keys, cold grounding steel in the pocket of his jeans. "I'm gonna see if they have a vending machine or something, I'm dying." In so many ways.

"'Kay." Sam is already ridding himself of layers of cotton, eager to sterilize; the road makes him feel like he hasn't showered for weeks. "Get me some Doritos or something."

But Dean already knows, had already included that in the plan, and suddenly he would commit homicide to get out of that room, Sam's bare torso the last thing he sees before he spins away from the bathroom. The outside air has a pacifying effect and Dean just breathes, sucks oxygen and lives as he strolls down the row of rooms looking for feeble sustenance. He wishes there was a Waffle House or something nearby, doesn't understand how there isn't because normally they're never further than ten minutes away from one.

He has to lap the motel to find a vending machine, and when he finally gets there he stares inside the dingily lit plastic case for upward of a minute before his eyes finally understand that he's looking at M&Ms. He buys a package of those and some Cheetos for himself, Nutter Butters and Doritos for Sam, Dr Peppers for both of them from the adjacent Coke machine. It's not enough but it'll do.

Just because there's nothing else for it he starts wandering back to the room. He isn't entirely sure he wants to return yet, because for some ludicrous, sudden reason the thought of Sam being in the shower not ten feet away is presenting itself as a huge issue in his exhausted mind. Simultaneously that innate awareness of his brother is a siren, hammering into his brain what he already knows: Sam is out of both Dean's sight and his hearing range and this is the furthest thing from okay because you can't protect him if you can't see him, so you need to get your slacker ass back to him right fucking now, Dean, do you understand, _now_.

Idly, as he's sliding the key into the lock, Dean thinks that there is no good reason in the world why he should not be in a straitjacket right now.

Sam is at the sink, toweling his almost-black hair dry, an overabundance of exposed skin in nothing but a worn pair of boxers. He is all torso, mile-high, and he is leaner than he was when he came back to Dean, stark jutting hipbones and honed muscles snaking under skin improbably bronze for all the time he spends covered up in flannel and jeans. Their eyes come charging together in the mirror and Dean is as surprised as Sam must be when a grin electrifies his previously somber face.

"Eat up, chief," he says, tossing half the stash of junk food at Sam, who snatches it out of the air without moving his eyes from Dean's own. After a couple of rough seconds he looks down at the packages in his huge hand and rips into them, aware of his own ravenousness.

"Shower's nice," he says through a mouthful, perching on the end of one of the beds, creaking stone-hard flatness only a marginal improvement from the passenger seat of the Impala.

"Close your mouth when you're eating, God," says Dean through a parched mouth, unsure why he can't stop thieving glances at his little brother. Probably it's because Sam takes up half the room with his massive height, though it's diminished when he's folded in half. Dean focuses insane energy on opening his Cheetos and almost spills the whole bag.

"Oh, because your table manners are exquisite," harps Sam, pouring a fistful of Nutter Butters into his yawning mouth.

"Do you see a table anywhere?" says Dean, and Sam grins, too content to put all his strength into a legitimate argument. Besides, they've got nothing to go on, no reason to poison the amiable atmosphere, no deadly unspoken anger finally crawling to the surface.

Sometimes Sam is so, so glad he came back. And although Dean would probably never admit to it - maybe with a gun muzzle kissing the side of his blonde head - he really is too.

(Now)

Dean is in the shower and it's taking him forever and Sam is being mentally slaughtered with this need to clap eyes on him, to exchange a few words, even if it's just about the damn weather or the godawful early-morning TV they sometimes mock together when they can't sleep. He unhooks himself from the side of the bed, walks over to the bathroom door, cracks it -

- and all of a sudden he is nine years old again, unabashedly throwing the shower curtain aside to see Dean all slumped up against the side, discovered. That scenario as a whole absolutely bulldozes Sam and his eyes are just as blown as Dean's when the older man peeks out suspiciously from behind his plastic shield.

Silence, punctuated only by the drizzle of the shower. It takes Dean an impossibly short time to get over the eccentricity of the situation and start smirking.

"Help you with something?" he asks.

"Uhhhh," and Sam honest-to-God cannot think of anything more clever than that to say.

"I thought for _sure_," says Dean, mild, "you'd get the whole privacy thing by now, Sam."

Oh Jesus fuck. Dean remembers.

He remembers, and he is making a reference, and they are thinking of the same occasion. That night that changed Sam's life, though he didn't know it until he was about thirteen years old.

"You know, Dean, just," and then Sam is slamming the door with a haste that is uncalled for, and he can hear Dean's echoing cackle behind him. Sam's heart is hummingbird quick. No way is he sleeping tonight because it hasn't gone away and he's gonna be kept up dissecting it like so many nights when he was younger. That thing that is so, so fucked up about him.

"You're the one that opened the door, Sammy," reminds Dean through the wood. Sam closes his eyes, breathes, peers in again. Dean hasn't moved and his face is serious now.

"Dude," says Sam, all caution, words so timorous. "All I wanted to know was how much longer you're gonna take in there, because you know I can't sleep with the light on." That is such bullshit even Sam doesn't believe himself.

Something shivers across Dean's face and if Sam didn't know better he'd wager it was something like disappointment, but it's gone so fast he is positive he didn't see it at all, simply hoped for it.

"Well I'm done, impatient, so if you'll excuse me," Dean says, bridging his eyebrows as he shuts off the shower, and Sam moves back into the main room, hyped like there's liquid crack in place of blood snaking through his veins.

(Now)

After that not-incident there is tension of the magnitude that frays nerves, slow sick lapses of silence heaping high like the miles left behind as they drive and drive. Awkwardness manifests in Dean's fingers curved so tightly around the steering wheel, in Sam's destroyed lower lip, teeth grinding merciless against tender chafed skin. Around them mountains swell, the deepest, most vibrant shade of green Sam has ever seen, and he concentrates on this unfamiliar jungle-y kind of Appalachian beauty to keep his eyes tricked away from Dean. It's not a bad trade, one gorgeous sight for another, but if this unbearable quiet doesn't end soon Sam is going to start screaming.

Halfway through Virginia Dean says, "Sam."

Sam is wired to be receptive to his brother's voice - especially when it speaks his name - and he jolts alert from a heavy drowse, almost braining himself on the roof of the car. "Yes. What."

Dean's little gust of laughter is the warmest thing that's happened to Sam's heart in days. "Just checking to see if you're alive, man, you've been out for like three hours."

"No way," says Sam firmly, but his eyes find the clock on the dash and he's damned if it's not well past four. "Shit."

"You're gonna have to quit with this nighttime insomnia thing," says Dean, glancing at Sam for the nth time that day. Sam is a bigger distraction than Dean's cell phone and the radio combined and Dean is starting to think that it should be illegal to have Sam as a passenger in his car.

"Yeah, well, if you know how to shut off my brain, I'm listening." Sam cracks his neck, harrumphs a little bit. "I'm hungry."

"I've been looking for somewhere to stop." Dean brings his free hand to his plum mouth, gnaws on the raw skin surrounding his thumbnail, tastes blood. "We're gonna have to find a way to get some money tonight, man."

Sam sighs. Sometimes he hates the way they do business in this family. "Yeah, I know. Whose turn is it?"

"Pretty sure it's yours."

"Yeah, me too." Sam's voice is fatalistic. "So let's get this over with."

(Then)

At the same age most kids are taught to play Go Fish and Uno, Sam is learning all the tricks and nuances of poker, blackjack. Dean's specialty is pool. John trains both of his sons in all areas of cautious gambling, but even so young Sam has a positively masklike poker face and Dean's accuracy is unparalleled. It's evident which art each should focus on and by ten and fourteen they could easily have backup careers in professional gambling.

The only person in the world who can see straight through Sam's flawless wiped facade is Dean. He knows his baby brother's face like he knows how to count to ten: innately, something he's memorized since he was very small. It gives him endless hours of entertainment watching Sam con other people because he knows exactly the hand Sam is holding, just by reading the imperceptible nuances darting all over his expression.

Then again, it's in Dean's job description to study Sam like a textbook.

(Now)

On a good night, they can bring in close to five hundred bucks. On a great night, if both of them are working hard and getting lucky, the damage gets closer to a thousand. Tonight, though, it's jackpot. Sam is at a table with a couple of high rollers and they've been pounding heavy liquor all night, loose with hundred dollar bills, all swagger. Sam pretends to be throwing back shots with the rest but really he's just farce: he's a Winchester, he knows how to fool the best.

From the bar across the room Dean watches through clusters of people and smoke, reacquainting himself cautiously with Captain Morgan and ESPN. He's got a buzz that's fueled by that look in Sam's eyes, glittering crowfeather black in the haze of the bar. That look that Dean has come to associate with victory, dollar signs in Sam's blown pupils, invisible to everyone else. Clearly they picked the right night to visit this bar, the right exit to stop at, and Sam is hustling for all he is worth.

Eventually even millionaires get sick of losing money and all that's left for Sam to do is collect, which he does without any visible exhilaration, simply rising to his intimidating height and grabbing a fistful of bills off the table. However, as he's loping out of the bar with his hands stuffed into his pockets, not daring to risk even half a peek at Dean lest their anonymity be thwarted, tiny commas are twisting at the edges of his lips, that quiet triumph that Dean loves. Hastily he swallows the rest of his drink, slams some money on the countertop, jumps off his barstool to pursue his brother out to the Impala.

Sam is reclining on the hood looking like he owns the world, lips forming soundless sums as he calculates the money flowing from one hand to the other. Dean has never seen Sam look so cocksure as when he's just been on a successful hustle and tonight is no different: the way his mouth is pulling up at the sides, the jaunty angle of his left leg where it tucks back behind his right, the deftness of his huge hands swapping money. He is seething with confidence.

"How much?" asks Dean, coming over to lean up beside him.

Sam fans the money in his hands like a stack of cards. "Two thousand bucks."

Dean is gobsmacked. "You're fucking kidding me."

"Nope." The grin that splits Sam's face is luxuriant, cocky. "Counted it twice."

"Give me that." Dean grabs for the cash, speeds through it even though he knows he's buzzed and his hopes for accuracy are very small. Finally he lets it go, looks at Sam. "I'll be damned."

Gleeful, Sam raises his arms, screws up his face as he sings, voice cracking in all the right spots. "_I'm a hustler baby_..."

In spite of himself Dean is laughing, raspy deep chuckle that rushes him with endorphins. "Son of a_ bitch_. Come on, Jay-Z, we're staying somewhere nice tonight, and you're driving."

Sam stops, still radiant. "I am?"

"Yup." Dean tosses him the keys. "I sure as hell can't."

"I didn't even know you were drinking," says Sam, surprised. He cuts off one of Dean's corners, ducking in to hunt for the smell of alcohol, and immediately Dean tenses, invaded.

"Dude," he says slowly, warily. "Personal bubble has officially been popped." His gaze is locked on Sam, sniper-focused.

Sam laughs out loud, eyes widening with shock and amusement. "You're so wrong sometimes, you know that? I'm providing free breathalyzer tests. Come on."

Dean swallows. He feels like a jackrabbit, muscles all coiled up and begging to flee, but obediently he breathes out, powerless under Sam's wide earnest gaze. Sam inhales Dean's exhale and he is too close by half. Dean thinks disjointedly that there is no way this can be good.

"Hmm," rumbles Sam. "I guess you were." His intrusive brown stare bolts across Dean's face, lips to eyes to nose and back again.

"What?" asks Dean. His voice is thick and the way Sam is watching him makes him hyperaware of his body, like he can draw up a labeled, illustrated diagram of every nerve and cell and blood vessel. "I was what?"

"Drinking," says Sam, before something - fear? - springs across his face and he backs off.

"Oh." Stupidly. "Yeah. Did you want some?"

A little smirk fractures Sam's lips apart and he looks away, spits through his teeth. "What I want is to get to Rehoboth tonight. Let's go, Captain Morgan."

(Then)

When Dean is drunk he sings, all the time, crashing around their current living quarters with his voice raised to the clouds. Sam is always amused by how Dean remembers all the words, the melodies. How he doesn't stumble over his words even as he's stumbling over furniture or sometimes his own shoelaces.

He only comes home in this state four or five times. Commonly it's after a good verbal brawl with John, although once it's with Sam, and this is the furthest Sam has ever seen him go. Earlier that day they'd exploded at each other, an unidentified tension finally culminating in the form of some venomous jabs, one thrown punch (Sam's; it connects), and one furious tussle ending in a pin (Dean's, and the expression on his face truly scares Sam as he lies winded under his brother, anticipating a blow that never comes). Afterward, watching Dean's back as he bolts out the door into the chill autumn day, Sam can't even recall the point of the fight.

Later, wrapped around himself on his bed, watching the way the blinds slice the fading sunlight like a loaf of bread, he remembers. John has been gone for a day and a half. Both of his sons are in agony waiting for his return; Dean is nineteen and pissed that he has to stay home and fucking _babysit_, and they've been having this issue where coexisting peacefully in a room by themselves is absolutely impossible. Dean can't look at Sam without starting a problem - however minor - and what makes the situation so unbearable is the fact that Dean watches Sam all. The. Time. It makes Sam want to strangle him. It's unfair, it's teasing, because Sam wants Dean so badly it makes his stomach hurt.

He also knows that there is no way in hell he can have him, and that's why most of the time he ends up stomping out of the room, dark head down, snarl ripping across his face when Dean asks him where he's going. If they're pissed at each other it's okay. That makes it easier for Sam to not reach out and take what he wants.

Another thing Sam knows: they can't keep this up. If they do, Sam runs the risk of losing his brother forever, and that's something he just can't even begin to accept.

Dean comes back to the hotel at two thirty-seven a.m. and Sam actually takes the time to thank God that he didn't get run over by a truck crossing the road in this state. As soon as Dean is over the threshold he's wobbling limply to his knees, making this awful keening noise like a groan, and before Sam can go to him he's throwing up all over the floor.

Somehow Sam manages to drag his brother into the bathroom, situates him shaking around the toilet bowl while he goes to clean up the acrid mess on the carpet. The whole time he's scrubbing his mind is one thousand percent with Dean, worrying, constantly calling out to make sure he's okay. Dean can't really talk but he's still making noise so at least Sam is assured by the fact that he's alive.

After he's done housekeeping he dumps the ruined towels out in the trash receptacle in the building, scrounges up some quarters to get a Sprite and a water from the Coke machine. Comes back grinding his teeth, angry at himself for leaving Dean alone even for ten seconds. Takes up vigil in the bathroom, perched on the side of the tub, tracing fingerprints down the framework of Dean's spine and crooning any sweet thing that jumps into his mind.

"I'm sorry, I'm fucking _sorry_," he sobs out at one point, and Dean's hand comes up to clench around his skinny birdlike wrist.

"Me too," he chokes, and then he puts his head down on the edge of the toilet and closes his eyes.

"Don't go to sleep," begs Sam, but Dean just gives this pathetic miserable moan and heaves and Sam has to revert to a monologue for a while.

Dean kinda tries not to remember but he's pretty sure they slept in the same bed that night, Sam all legs and torso, wringing cold water onto Dean's face out of a threadbare washcloth. He says a lot and most of it doesn't penetrate the smog of alcohol but there is one thing so repetitive that Dean can't fail to make it out. I love you, man.


	3. Chapter 3

(Then)

Dean is twenty. Sam is sixteen. They haven't been left behind in months and they are both soaring with freedom, elated. Right now they're staked out in an ancient firehouse, the long-suffering victim of flickering lights, strange noises, and unexplained creeping shadows. Pretty routine and maybe not so urgent but there are two or three youngsters who've just joined the squad and they aren't taking this "creepy shit" so well. John is mostly there to watch and supervise his sons, and they're just glad he's giving them the opportunity.

In tandem the youngest Winchester boys work beautifully; good-cop bad-cop kind of flow. Sam exudes trustworthiness with those sincere doe eyes and for all his impressive height it's clear he's still at the peak of youthful innocence. Contrarily Dean is tougher, more world-weary and sharp with minute details, and thus excels at judging the honesty of the people they meet. Sam with his easy smile and open expression coaxes trust, and if that doesn't work there's Dean at his side, all intimidation. Most of the time, eventually, they can wrench the truth from the most obdurate of liars.

On this job no extreme methods of questioning are required: everyone is willing to talk and no one seems to be concealing anything. None of the younger firefighters have any notion as to what could be causing the activity; a few are obvious cynics and sneer when they realize that Sam and Dean are implying that the firehouse is haunted. Of the twenty-six men stationed there, however, are several that have been there for more than a couple of years - three since the eighties and one, an ex Navy SEAL made of steel tenacity and realism teetering on pessimism, since the early seventies. These men all know a thing or two their younger colleagues don't and they aren't bashful about sharing. Sam, Dean, and John all corner them separately for hard interrogation.

"So," says Louis, the SEAL with chilly eyes of an unsettling arctic blue and tattoos webbing his arms, "you boys think there's maybe something going on here that can't be explained by anything natural, that right?"

Sam and Dean swap a glance.

"Yes, sir," says Sam respectfully. "Do you know of anything that could have happened here in the past to maybe trigger this activity? An accidental death, or a suicide committed in the building?"

Louis studies them impassively from beneath heavy creased brows, weighing his response before he lets it pass his lips.

"Well," he says slowly. "There wasn't no suicide ever happened here, but there was something back in eighty-four. Bout two o'clock in the morning one day some homeless guy got in off the streets. Seemed real harmless at first, just wanted a drink of water and some food, stuff like that. We gave him a cot downstairs to sleep on, figured we'd deal with him in the morning, you know. Well, after we'd all gone to sleep, guy went psycho. Starting screaming gibberish at the top of his lungs, throwing shit all over the place. Few of us went downstairs to try to calm him down and he ended up attacking us with a rusty blade he had hidden in his pocket."

"Really." Dean's eyebrows are so high they're matching up with his hairline, and it looks so funny Sam would laugh if not for the serious nature of the conversation. "Did he kill anyone?"

"Yeah. Fuckin' lunatic sliced Jim's throat all the way to the bone, nearly did the same to me. Would have if Brian over there-" here he gestures to one of the older firefighters sitting off in the corner "-hadn't shot him clean to next Saturday. Few of us got torn up real bad in the process, and it was one of the hardest things I ever had to do in my life looking at Jim like that. And I'm telling you, I've seen some tough shit."

Sam is sick at heart; it never gets easier hearing stories like this. "And you don't have any idea why he freaked out like that?"

Louis shakes his head. "Not a damn clue. Like I said, he seemed alright at first. I guess you never can tell with these homeless crazies. Most of em are nuts before they even get out on the street."

"Got that right." Dean huffs disbelievingly, indignant and amped next to Sam. "Any idea what happened to the body?"

"Which one?"

"Both," Sam and Dean chime. They glance at each other and Dean gives a half-smirk that Sam feels all the way to his toes.

"Homeless guy got taken off by the cops a little while later. I don't know what happened to him. Jim, he was buried in the local cemetery, do believe. Couple of streets down from here."

Ten minutes later Sam and Dean are in the library scouring old newspapers for articles referencing the incident; John is trekking down to the police station to make inquiries under a false name. All they need to know is which body to burn.

(Now)

Two and a half hours in the car, both of them scratchily yelling lyrics at the top of their lungs, and suddenly Dean is sober. Sam is on an unshakable Blue Öyster Cult kick, wearing out Agents of Fortune in the tape player. All Dean feels when he looks at Sam splayed over the driver's seat, confidently husking every word, is pride that registers as honey warmth in his stomach.

"Thought you hated my music," he says around a little smile, gruff.

"I never said that," chirps Sam, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, way too wired for one a.m. "I just think you need to update your collection."

"Oh yeah, with what?"

"I dunno, man, something produced after the eighties." Sam cracks a shit-eating grin, those eyes of his all wide and powerful. "Course you'd have to actually get a working CD player in here."

"And that's not happening," cuts Dean, his voice teeming with manic finality. "My girl is perfect the way she is." He traces a hand fondly over the dashboard, gentler with his car than he is with most people, and now is one of those times that Sam loves him so much it burns to the bone.

Maybe half an hour later they're driving parallel to the ocean, windows down, sharp briny sea air permeating the inside of the car. Dean is leaning out, face up to the sky, vivid yellow-white of the moon skipping off his mirror eyes. Over the persistent growl of the engine he can hear the shorebreak and without even knowing the reason for it he's grinning.

"Been too long away from this, Sammy," he says.

"I know." Sam shivers when he sees that smile, vicarious joy. "Let's stay. For as long as we can get away with."

"Until we get bored, you mean." Dean's arm is out the window now, wind-surfing. He's like a little kid on his first beach trip.

"Dean," says Sam knowingly, affectionately, "that look on your face says you're never gonna get bored here."

Damn if he isn't one hundred percent correct.

(Now)

The hotel Sam picks is the swanky kind, a gargantuan, arresting structure that towers above just about every other building in the Rehoboth skyline. Tilting his head back all the way just to see the top of it, Dean thinks distractedly that there is no chance they can afford this before he remembers the fat stack of cash in Sam's back pocket. He lets his brother do the talking when they get inside because his mind is in a thousand places at once, attention divided between the high-ceilinged ritzy decor and the way Sam's profile looks demarcated in all that golden chandelier light. Abruptly Dean is worn to shreds.

Both of them are itching to explore but it's too late for much of that and Dean plays responsible older brother, leading Sam to the elevators with an almost gentle smile dusting his lips. Sam follows him like he's on a leash, magnetized by Dean's eyes always darting back to check. Reassuring himself that Sam is still there, that he hasn't been stolen. It's a habit that Dean is pretty positive he's never gonna be able to kick.

Their room is on the fifteenth floor. Sam plunges in and charges over to the bed nearest the window, bellyflops onto it and groans out loud because fuck, Dean, it's like a cloud, get over here you've got to try this. Without a second thought Dean lets himself be swayed, dropping his bag on the floor and walking over to crash onto the bed next to Sam. Only when he opens his eyes and finds his brother gazing at him from mere inches away does he realize that he has his own bed to monopolize.

"Sharing a bed now, are we?" asks Sam. His voice is level and even the tiniest bit amused but there is something not quite right about it, too deep, too controlled. His eyes are unsettlingly sable against the stark alabaster of the comforter and there is a tricky finger of heat looping through Dean's stomach.

"Hey, man, you said come over _here_, so I'm just following orders." Dean is prouder than he can describe that he's talking this calmly. He doesn't know why neither of them are moving but there are worse things that could be happening and he is so, so tired.

He allows himself to doze for a minute, burrowing into the bed, softer than anything he's felt for a good while. Somehow it's comforting to have Sam so close to him; reminiscent of having to curl up on opposite sides of one bed in countless shitty motel rooms. When they were small it was fine, even pleasant with their mixed cozy warmth, but as they got older Dean was always hyperaware of Sam at his back, every tiny shift of position, the heat of him overwhelming. They were too old to be sharing a bed. There was too much happening.

(Then)

The first time Dean brings a girl back to their apartment Sam is thirteen years old and hopeless, the apple of his brother's eye and spitting because he has been replaced. After she leaves Dean comes out into the living room where Sam is crouched over a well-loved copy of _Slaughterhouse Five_, lower lip numb from relentless vampiric biting, forcing himself to focus on every word. The truth is he hasn't read but a few pages since Dean locked the bedroom door. The truth is he has never really understood what it means to be incapacitated by rage until this night.

Dean is loose-limbed, shirtless as he clatters around the kitchen, the look of satiation on his face enough to render Sam heartsick. He tries not to watch the way Dean moves but it's no good. As much as he hates his brother right now he will always love him that tiny bit more.

They're not talking. Dean registers the lack of chatter but it doesn't strike him as anything to be worried about until he really looks at Sam, balled up agonizingly tight on the couch, wrecking his mouth with pitiless teeth. No one else would notice that he's upset but Dean has memorized every nuance of Sam, made a point of knowing each of his emotions from the day he was born. Sam is Dean's responsibility, but it goes miles deeper than that. It's not just because it's his job that Dean watches Sam all the time. It's simply something that he does and he doesn't think too much about it because, really, it's no big deal.

"Awful quiet, Sammy," he says, pretending to devote his attention wholly to the half-made sandwich in front of him while sneaking tiny glances at his little brother, wintry stone on the sofa.

"She wasn't," says Sam bluntly, and Dean would grin but Sam isn't joking. He's furious. Dean searches for a conceivable reason for Sam's anger but it's like scrabbling for purchase on ice and he comes up empty.

"About that," says Dean, totally unsure of himself, how to broach this. "Look - I'm sorry you were here. Dad would kill me if he knew."

Sam looks at him then. His eyes are flaming and his poor grim mouth is destroyed, bloody scraps of skin twisting loose. Dean can't understand him but it's not for want of trying.

"You want me to not tell Dad, right?" Sam says, such the little defeatist. He hasn't blinked since they established eye contact and it's unnerving.

"I'd appreciate that, yeah," answers Dean warily. "Sammy-"

"When are you gonna stop _calling_ me that?" roars Sam, agitated by a thousand other things and that nickname is the wrong button to push. "I'm not fucking five years old anymore, Dean."

It's the first time Dean has ever heard Sam swear and it feels like he's been smacked in the face. He's never even tasted Sam this angry before, never imagined the bookish, gangly kid with those shy sweet eyes could harbor such violence. Dumbly he watches Sam tear over to the closet, yank his jacket from a hanger, throw it on as he stomps to the door.

"Where are you going?" manages Dean, half moving out from behind the counter even as Sam flinches back in response. He isn't letting anyone touch him now.

Sam grabs a key from the counter, zips up his coat. "Out."

"And what if Dad comes back, huh?" asks Dean, trying not to panic. "What the hell am I supposed to tell him?"

"That I ran away," bites Sam, smartass. "Make something up. You're good at that." And just like that he's gone, abandoning Dean to wonder what in the hell he means by that, the slam of the door resonating in his thoughts for hours after it stops.

When he thinks about it later, if he lets himself, he realizes that day is the commencement of that horrible frigid tension between them. It's just that the only plausible reason why is the one he refuses to consider.

(Now)

Dean wakes up some hours later punch-drunk and vaguely panicked, but with no indication as to why he should feel that way. Beside him Sam is mummified under the covers, deep pulling breaths marking the heaviness of his sleep, and Dean is astonished to realize that they are still in the same bed.

As silently as he can he gets up, strips off his boots and jeans, yanks his t-shirt over his head and lets it all lie in a pile between the beds. It's too late to care, too dark, and he's too woozy from slumber. He climbs into his own bed and pulls the covers around him, settling into the chill of unused sheets.

It's a while before he finds himself drifting again. Enough time passes for him to feel a mild sense of loss for Sam's solid heat beside him.

(Now)

"Dean."

Sam is saying his name and Dean isn't gonna wake up, no way. He plays possum, doesn't make a sound, hoping this is just part of his lovely dream.

"Dean," sings Sam, prodding him. "It's almost one, man, come on. We've missed like half the beach day already."

Dean slits one eye, skeptical. "You're just saying that to get me up."

"Nope." Sam grins and thrusts his watch in Dean's face. "Let's go, lazyass. There's a breakfast place a couple blocks down. They have pancakes with peanut butter and chocolate chips in them."

That gets Dean's attention. He loves peanut butter pancakes more than just about any other food in the world and it's been years since he's been able to eat them. Stretching luxuriantly, he sits up, almost knocking Sam off the bed with his enthusiasm, but it's okay because Sam is about three-quarters naked again and Dean can't look at him for too long like that.

"Hey, Dean."

"Mmhmm." If Sam keeps saying his name like that, voice way too low to match his baby face, Dean is gonna fracture in all the wrong places.

Sam cocks his head. "You moved."

"I-" Dean looks at him strangely for a second, processing slowed by grogginess, but then he gets Sam's meaning and flushes rosily. "Oh. Yeah."

"Why?"

Dean hates himself for how feverish his cheeks suddenly are. "I dunno. I didn't even know I had fallen asleep until it was like seven o' clock in the morning, man." He clears his throat, hand flying to the back of his neck so he can rub a pattern well-worn by nerves there. "Let's go eat before they close."

Inquisitive, Sam steadies his gaze on Dean's, maybe (definitely) aware of his brother's discomfort, but today he is content and thus non-confrontational so he chooses not to press. He rises fluid and passive from the bed, grabs jeans and a shirt from his suitcase, flicking gentle curious glances at Dean as he dresses.

It kills Dean what they're doing. He's looking at Sam the instant his brother is looking away, afraid to make eye contact for any prolonged amount of time, shy for no good reason. He doesn't know what this is but it's drying out his mouth and his hands are unsteady as he knots up his boots. He can't stop thinking of last night, the innocent way Sam's body shifted against his, parallel in that cloud bed. Easy. Natural.

Too much silence as they stroll down the sidewalk together, leaving them grasping for reasons. Why one conversation can rip fault lines between them. Why Sam's mood directly commands Dean's. It's going to wreck Dean's head because in no world can this be named as normal.

A couple of times he almost turns to Sam to ask him what's going on but the instant before the words leave his tongue he always chokes them back. He has this creeping idea that Sam knows exactly what's happening and Dean doesn't think he can stand to hear him say it out loud.

They sit across from each other in a booth by the window, tendrils of sharp sunlight poking through the blinds. Sam's eyes shine lacquered gold-brown in the glare and Dean is counting the sparkles in his irises, his gaze dancing away when Sam looks back.

"So are we actively looking for something to kill here, or are we just fucking around on the beach for a few days?" blurts Sam after several minutes, unable to tolerate the quiet.

Dean twists his juicy mouth, shakes his head as he sips at a mug of coffee. "I dunno, man. I guess if something catches our eye we check it out, but I'm fine with a vacation if you are."

"Fine?" Sam's grin is a wicked blade. "More like ecstatic."

"Yeah." Dean smirks back, defenseless. "Me too."

And just like that order is restored.

(Then)

It's Sam's birthday. He's seventeen years old and he gets homemade cake for the first time in about eight years. Dean basks in the joy of his face when he presents it to him, a little sloppy because he'd messed up the writing on the top, but delicious nonetheless. The three Winchester men sit around the table and enjoy a night off in honor of Sam, share laughter and stories and camaraderie like an actual standard family.

It's one of the greatest nights of Sam's life. And then it gets better.

At about midnight John stands up, and, after wishing Sam a happy birthday for the nth time, shuffles off yawning down the hall to his bedroom. "Hunt tomorrow," he calls over his shoulder as he goes, "so don't stay up till the crack of dawn."

And Sam and Dean both nod and mutter, "Yessir." Smirking at each other because they know they're just telling their father what he wants to hear.

For a minute Dean just looks at Sam, and there is some indeterminate hybrid emotion in his eyes that strikes a match to Sam's blood, sets his lower stomach ablaze.

"Damn, kiddo," he says finally. "You're getting so old, dunno what to do with you anymore."

Sam's face blooms mild scarlet as he smiles at the ground. "So what are you, then?"

"Wiser. More experienced." Dean winks at him, shows that charming crooked grin. "Let's get drunk."

It's probably a bad idea. Every time Dean drinks he thinks of that time in the kitchen, Sam's fingers pawing ice all over his back, what happened afterward. It's okay when Sam isn't in the room. The problem is right now they are pasted knee-to-knee on the couch and Sam won't stop staring into his eyes, so aggressive, and who is Dean to turn him down.

They sit and drink and talk and Dean is so content he thinks if he died right now he would be just fine with that, because doubtless nothing is better than this. Sam is twice as animated as normal, going at thousands of miles an hour, coffee eyes all streaked through with zeal. When he's drunk he says Dean's name a lot, that one word in so many different ways, saturated with laughing sweet joy.

There is no one in the world who says Dean's name like Sam.

Eventually they tumble back to their bedroom, woozy tripping over each other. Dean is a little more sober than his brother and he has the clarity of mind to press his hand clumsily over Sam's mouth, keep him from laughing out loud. If John wakes up they're dead.

In the dark cool safety of the room Dean pulls Sam over to his bed and parks him on the edge of it, steadies him when he sways. "Gotta sleep now," he mumbles. "You okay?"

Sam is smiling against his hand and Dean can't move it away because Sam's laugh is obnoxious when he's wasted, loud enough to slice through walls. "Mmhmm."

"Don't laugh," warns Dean.

"Won't," promises Sam, and he keeps that promise, solemn when Dean frees him. In the dark he could be someone else, someone who isn't Dean's brother. Only his outline is visible in the diminished light sneaking in through the blinds, dark penciled silhouette, and Dean is too aware of how close they are. "Dean."

"Mm?"

"The cake," stumbles Sam. "Best birthday in ever. Forever. Thanks."

Dean smiles, feeling a fresh buzz rising through him when he turns his head. "You got it, Sammy."

He isn't sure what happens then, just that Sam's fingers are suddenly wound in his hair and their foreheads are bumping together, both of them breathing stunted and heavy. Nervous. He can't stay like this, can't move, can't process anything.

"Sam," he gets out, warning, terrified.

"Dean," responds Sam, thick-tongued and low.

"Sam, you're drunk," says Dean, knowing he is too, unsure of why he's not pulling away. His eyes are locked to Sam's chapped mouth and all of this feels fucked up, dreamlike, Sam's hand knotted in his hair simply a delusion with feeling.

"Yeah," admits Sam, blunt. "But so are you, and I love you."

Roughly he nuzzles his forehead against Dean's, tightens his grip in his brother's hair before letting his hand slide down to his lap again. Dean is appalled at himself for wanting that hand back.

"Go to sleep, Sam," he says, and for a minute he can't place the crestfallen look in Sam's eyes. Then he understands, and without giving himself permission he surges aggressively forward and nuzzles back, letting his mouth hover perilously close over Sam's before he stands up to climb into his own bed.

"Love you, too," he mumbles, excusing himself because he's hammered, reassured because he won't remember this in the morning.

Except he does. Sam does, too; Dean reads it in his eyes the second he looks at him. That clandestine knowledge, paired with Sam's abnormally peaked level of happiness, screws with him for weeks. Because why, _why_ should that make him so happy?

(Now)

Dean is amped for a day of blistering in the sun, kicking back on one of the cheap sketchy beach chairs they'd bought at a surf shop down the road from their hotel and maybe nabbing a few more hours of sleep, but Sam is coasting an entirely different thought process. He gets one swift look at the ocean, throws his stuff down on a bare spot of beach, and sprints full-tilt for the water, whooping with elation, thoroughly unafraid of the tide. There is something magnetic about his joy and Dean finds himself mimicking his little brother's path. He hurls himself into the surf alongside Sam, in his element hopping waves, blue pliant mountains crested with ease. Dean is reminded fiercely of Sam's first day of the beach. He can't stop smiling.

Sam is leveled with him, mouth always broken open in a huge grin, beautiful laughter cascading out from somewhere genuine within him. They stay in the water for hours, at war with the trickster tide and sometimes each other: Sam shoving at Dean's chest and Dean scrapping back, wrestling when they get bored.

Sam misses this on a level so deep it aches.

The sun is skimming the horizon when they let the ocean spit them back out, dragging, drained. Dean lets Sam bump into him as they limp back up to their chairs and he doesn't even care that his dreams of baking have been lost. All he's focused on is Sam's smile, never wants to lose the way they are with each other right now. Joyous. Tranquil. Synchronized.

Sometimes he's pretty sure this is all he needs.

(Now)

Back in the cool welcome shade of the room they rock-paper-scissors for the bathroom and Dean wins. He takes his sweet time in the shower as Sam folds himself down on the floor between the beds to avoid drenching his new sheets. He clicks the TV on for white noise but doesn't really see it, his fingers picking absently at the carpet, lush fleecy thicket of blue on his skin. There is too much of his brother in his mind right now to even try to focus on anything else.

After half an hour or so Sam recognizes that for once the lack of moisture in his mouth is actually related to dehydration. In his quest to find the ice bucket he flits around the room upending things but ultimately comes up with nothing. This time he doesn't have to fight with himself: he has a concrete reason, he is innocent as a child, and thus he flies into the bathroom unannounced with a blameless conscience.

The first thing he sees: the ice bucket in all its flimsy plastic glory, perched on the side of the sink begging for him to grab it. He does this happily, starts to announce to Dean that he's going for drinks, but something quells him, freezes him to the warm dewy tile under his toes.

The first thing he hears: Dean's voice, and he is making that sound that Sam would know anywhere, helpless raspy groan scraping low from his throat. Sam swallows, bombarded (_do I say something what do I say should I leave oh God oh my_ God), insane even before Dean glares out from behind the curtain.

"Well this is a familiar scene."

Sam is mortified but he grounds himself with the reassurance that he can't be half as embarrassed as Dean; he lets his mouth fall open in prayer that his brain will take over and equip him with something hilarious and winning to say, but one look in Dean's eyes and he knows he doesn't have to. His brother is smirking, pupils burning straight kohl and painted through with an obvious emotion that turns Sam's stomach to lava. Lust.

His first coherent thought is that he has never seen Dean look at him like that before, but then he realizes he is wrong. Ages ago, in the kitchen of a house distinguishable from all the others simply because of that day. Ice so cold it sticks to Sam's hands when he melds it to Dean's back, the earthy way Dean smells when Sam pushes his face between his shoulder blades. That cursory lightning strike of heat that brands his brother's eyes before he flees.

"You gonna make this a habit or what, Sammy?" asks Dean. "Cause you know I'm not gonna be able to lock you out."

That's one of their rules: no locked doors. No separation. They've gone through enough unbelievable hell to know that they can't chance not being able to reach each other because of a fucking deadbolt.

"I was thirsty," says Sam lamely. "I wanted ice. The bucket's in here."

"And you couldn't wait till I was done," guesses Dean, amused.

Sam is wary of the lightness in his brother's voice, poised for the fury that he knows must surely be coming. "Nope. You take forever in the damn shower, man, I would have been waiting till four am."

"You'd think I would know better by now," says Dean slowly. "No such thing as privacy around you, is there?"

Sam finds his eyes, stabs of bravery curling through his chest.

"If you're talking about getting off," he says, taking a hesitant step further into the room, "you're safer in the shower than you are in bed."

Dean's eyebrows arch.

"If you were a kid you'd have been out of here already," he says, sidestepping, and the raspiness of his voice is suspect, gorgeous.

"Yeah, well," says Sam, shrugging. "Not because I wanted to be."

Dean can't move. There is something pulsing unsaid through the air between them and it takes this moment for him to realize that it's always been there, skulking a fingertip's length out of his conscious mind, concealed in his peripherals. "What are you telling me here, Sam?"

Sam grins, slow humorless half-moon carving his face in two. "Who said I was telling you anything?"

"I did," says Dean sharply. "I know you. I think you're attracted to the sound of me jerking off or some shit."

Taken aback, Sam laughs out loud, rich hearty musical timbre that cajoles an answering grin to Dean's lips. "Maybe I am," says Sam amicably. "Or maybe you're reading too much into this and I'm just thirsty."

Dean stares at him, hesitating, unsure what he wants from this. Aware that Sam has just talked him in circles so confusion muddles his prior certainty. "Yeah. Maybe."

"You don't sound convinced." Sam's demeanor is mocking but he is totally bullshitting the boldness in his voice. Really, inside, he is a mess, dodging the edge of a cliff that keeps crumbling beneath his feet. _Fake it till you make it_.

"I'm not," replies Dean, spitting back identical false surety. Sam is better at lying but Dean makes a living off shammed confidence and he's got this where he wants it. "You should probably go get that ice. You know, so you can uh, quench your terrible thirst."

"I think I'll do that," says Sam, dignified. He starts to move toward the door but stops, runs a hand back through his salt-matted hair, cocks his head. "My timing really is unbelievable."

"Like I said," answers Dean, devil smirk stamping into the corners of his pretty mouth. "You're attracted to it."

"Yeah, so tell me about all those other times you did it and I _didn't_ come barging in," yells Sam back over his shoulder as he lopes out of the room.

"You wanted to," shouts Dean, but as soon as the door clicks shut, chopping off Sam's whoop of laughter, he presses the heels of his palms into his forehead, swears. He doesn't understand what's happening, doesn't have a damn _clue_, but there is one thing he does know. He's gonna lose it if they don't get off this path.


	4. Chapter 4

(Now)

"Feels weird that we're not on a hunt."

They're on the deck of a waterfront seafood restaurant, leaning up against the scratchy wooden railing, idly sipping frosty beer with their eyes on the watchful harvest moon. Sam is riding the beginnings of a thick warm buzz and he knows that Dean is right there with him because they are shoulder to shoulder arm to arm and Dean only lets that happen when he's drunk.

"Yeah," he says slowly. "But it's good, you know? It's good to have a mental break, cause sometimes I feel like I'm this close to going crazy."

"You know I know about that," says Dean, low, and Sam inclines his head in acknowledgement. "We should get paid for this."

Sam grins, makes this little chuckling noise that draws a smile from Dean as well. "In a way, man, we sort of do. Like, the people we save - their gratitude. It's payment."

"You're a softie," accuses Dean, bumping him.

"Uh huh, and you're not." Sam pushes back, his veins spiked with deep shimmering warmth. He is consumed.

Dean nods. "Damn straight."

"You forget that I know you better than anyone," says Sam calmly, draining the last of his beer. "I see through you, dude. I call bullshit."

Dean looks as though he would dearly love to demur this; Sam sees the words fighting their way up, but he never speaks them aloud, just raises his bottle to his mouth and pulls peaceably at his drink. Sam can't watch, can't look away, feels that familiar ache beginning to broil in his belly. Dean's fucking mouth.

Silence reigns again. They are effortlessly compatible right now, as placid as they've ever been with each other. Dean keeps grabbing tiny glances at Sam and every time their eyes come together, strong as a punch, the youngest Winchester thinks he could build a staircase out of stars and climb it to the moon.

"Let's go walk down there," says Dean after a time, deep voice all rusted by alcohol and sparing use.

"_You_ want to walk on the beach?" asks Sam, eyebrows bridged heavily with disbelief. "You know you're wearing jeans?"

"So?" banters Dean, evading his brother's gaze. "People wear jeans on the beach, right?"

"I've gotta say they usually go with shorts," says Sam, humored. "But I guess maybe in the winter?"

"Well, I'm about to make history then. Let's go." And Dean is moving, always so goal-oriented, striding with that automatic swagger that Sam tried so hard to emulate as a child. He loves that Dean naturally expects him to follow. Loves that he checks over his shoulder just once, transitorily, to make sure.

When Sam catches up Dean bumps him again, and Sam can't help but think that surely this is not normal.

(Then)

When Sam loses his virginity Dean is the first person he tells. He is almost eighteen years old and Dean thinks that he doesn't seem nearly as happy as the average teenage boy recalling his first sexual experience. They lay in the dark together and Dean breathes as Sam talks, clumsy and bashful even saved from the scrutiny of daylight.

In the morning Dean can't explain why his body aches as though he's sprinted miles, why his knuckles are all swollen from relentless agitated cracking, the inside of his mouth all gritty and sick with leftover blood because without even realizing it he'd gnawed a raw strip into his left inner cheek. He thinks that he understands how Sam feels when he brings girls home, and then he thinks that he is being ridiculous because brothers don't get jealous of each other's girlfriends.

"So are you gonna see her again?" he asks Sam later that day. They are in the living room waiting for John to get home from the grocery store. Sam is hunched over his homework while Dean is sprawled all over the couch switching idly between channels, and they haven't spoken much. Dean thinks this is his fault.

Sam glances up from his notebook, throwing his head to jar waves of thick hair out of his eyes. It's too long right now, he needs a trim, but Dean finds the habit endearing. He doesn't have to look at Sam to know that he's biting his lip, trying to guess why Dean is asking questions.

"Well, I see her every day at school," says Sam, a little taste of curiosity to his voice. "But other than that - I don't know."

"My advice," says Dean evenly, cautiously, trying to act like he doesn't care. "I wouldn't get attached. We move around too much, you know. So that could make things awkward if you just have to up and go and never get to see her again."

"I hear you," answers Sam, and Dean senses the smile in his little brother's voice, knows that there is something totally off about this, doesn't care. He just has this insane urge to keep Sam from this girl. Obviously because he won't be able to stand it if Sam gets hurt, can't take Sam sulking around all the time, china heart in shards. Of course that's it.

Dean can't find it in himself to say more, despite the fact that he feels somewhat like a shaken can of Dr Pepper, all corked up and poised for paroxysm. There is silence behind him for a couple of beats, then Sam's sigh curves through the air and his pencil resumes its frantic scratching. It still astonishes Dean how Sam has honed his intelligence, how he cares so much about school even knowing what he and his family do for a living. Endless textbook study keeps his lamp on well into the night, while what forces Dean's eyes open is the knowledge that the boogeyman is, in fact, real, and might actually be skulking under one of their beds right now.

"I kind of regret it," murmurs Sam, voice so low that no one should be able to hear him. But Dean is wired to be receptive to Sam's every microscopic action and he hears those words like they were breathed into his ear.

"Yeah?" asks Dean, turning his head to find Sam's eyes. "Why?"

"Well. Just. Lots of reasons," trips Sam softly. Under Dean's scrutiny he feels rent open, vulnerable, bare. Like he has no secrets, like Dean can flip through his mind as easily as he can change the TV channel. His heart is in disarray.

Dean smiles a little, but Sam sees how his throat hitches over what should be a smooth swallow and knows that the rubber-band tension stretching between them isn't in his mind. "Crazy, Sammy."

"Yeah, I know." Sam ducks his head, doodles circles on his Calculus homework until they're so dark no eraser can ever fully delete the marks. "Maybe cause it didn't mean anything." Hating himself for admitting it, fearing Dean's scoff of laughter, but it never comes and Sam dares to reestablish eye contact. Dean is looking at him with an eccentric mixture of emotion on his face, guarded so Sam can't read him. It's infuriating.

"It meant something," says Dean. "Those kinds of things always do, a little." His voice is almost gentle and Sam loves him for the uncharacteristic empathy.

"Well, I mean yeah," says Sam. "I just. Didn't feel much for her, you know." He hates how his thoughts are refusing to let themselves be articulated smoothly, chopped up somewhere between his mind and his tongue.

Dean feels this diminutive twitch in a place that's too close to his heart, a little leap of nerves (_just a freak thing, just a glitch_) that he refuses to acknowledge as triumph. "Not girlfriend material, huh?"

Sam smirks. "Guess not."

And just like that the conversation is finished, though in this new silence there is a fresh diaphanous layer of tension: Sam's teeth grinding into his freshly patched lower lip, Dean's toes curled hard inside his boots. All those unsaid words and neither of them has a clue where to begin.

(Now)

Sam keeps pulling Dean off the beach to stop at one more bar for one more drink. It's not like Dean has a single complaint but if they were buzzed before they're trashed now and they can't seem to stop touching. When they walk they stay pinned together at the arm, falling against each other just to stay vertical, and Sam is so loud. Dean is envious of everyone else who can hear because he wants his brother's words to be just for him.

Eventually they have to sit because the vertigo is exhausting. They're at the end of the pier, sturdy wooden pathway jutting defiantly out into the sea, and Sam can't remember how they got there. On a bench nailed right by the railing they curl up into themselves and raise their faces to the sky, expansive sapphire vault overflowing with silver gemlike stars, resplendent. Sam is immersed in constellations, in Dean's silhouette dominating the corners of his vision. He can't decide if he wants to ruin the gorgeous peace woven between them with messy words.

Around them the ocean sings, strong watery melodies spilling over the worn planks of the pier. It's too easy to zone with this much alcohol burning through them and Dean keeps looking at Sam to ground himself, to stay in the present. He doesn't think Sam notices but then again Sam sees a lot more than he lets on. Dean keeps losing time, blurring out of hollow blackness into muggy reality. Wondering what he's missing, if there's anything he'd want to revisit later if he remembered.

"Sam," he murmurs eventually, frustration spilling over. "I'm losing it, man."

Sam turns his head, somber. Normally he is a boisterous drunk, grin reaching every inch of his face, all the light in the world pouring from those wide sepia eyes. Tonight, though, there's something bringing down his joy, and Dean doesn't know what it is.

"What do you mean?" asks Sam, deliberate words coming out slow and perfect despite his intoxication. "Losing it?"

"I can't remember stuff," answers Dean, not even sure what he's saying anymore, but he knows that Sam will understand. Sam always gets every aspect of Dean; it's in his blood, some psychic cognizance that goes deeper than it probably should.

Eyes listing back and forth between Dean's own, Sam nods. "Oh," he says, and Dean feels this swell of triumph because he's right. "Blank spots?"

"Yeah."

Sam swallows, slow over a dry throat. He lets his gaze sweep out over the inky horizon, the split between ocean and sky distinguished singularly by a neon splotch of stars. "We should sober up," he says, thick. "Get water or something."

"Okay," says Dean, blinking against the ferocious need to stare at Sam again. All he ever wants to do when he glances away is look back, and he doesn't let himself realize this unless he's wasted. "Let's try not to be hungover tomorrow."

Sam laughs out loud, a derisive alluring sound that spins Dean's heart into a triphammer rhythm. "Maybe a little late for that, Dean." His brother's name on his tongue has a taste, so different from any other word he will ever speak. Even drunk Sam can't kid himself that words are supposed to have a taste and he wonders for the billionth time what in the fuck is wrong with him.

Amidst all this tumultuous thought cycling around his brain they have started moving again. Dean keeps reaching for any part of Sam to grab, steadying himself, and Sam thinks it might be worth it to drink their lives away if it makes Dean touch him this much. Once he reaches for Dean and they just hold on, palms circled around shoulders, so fierce and fixed it's like the only thing they will ever be able to feel again is each other.

(Then)

They're in some midnight corner of New Orleans, shadowy gripping darkness all around, a place to which no tourist should ever venture. The only thing is, they're not tourists, and John is locked on a hoodoo priestess who thinks it's fun to raid graveyards for fresh bodies. She's reanimating those corpses into zombies and the Winchesters know they have to stop this before word spreads around the city, before the CDC and the government can start poking their dirty fingers into it.

Sam is twelve, still formative, all unwieldy limbs and wrecked nails with loops of dark hair tumbling over his eyes. Dean is sixteen and not quite as cocksure as everyone perceives him to be, but he fakes it with such proficiency that even John isn't privy to this. Only Sam. Always Sam.

The Winchesters have paid New Orleans brief bloody visits in the past but it's really the first time Sam and Dean have been permitted to prowl the streets. Dean is hiding apprehension in his perpetual loose-limbed swagger and the fuck-you smirk that puckers his gorgeous mouth, but streaks of confidence bloom through his chest only because of the secure cold weight of the gun tucked under his waistband. John doesn't have to fake anything; he's been constantly looking for something to mess with since Mary was killed, so he makes eye contact with everyone who dares. By hard contrast Sam skulks uneasily between them, flanked by these two men who would die for him without pause, and no one even glances at him for fear of riling Dean and John. Despite all the tamped-down panic skewering through his stomach, however, Sam cannot quash his curious nature, and his gaze wanders inquiringly into the voodoo shops crowding the sides of the street. Black lace and strings of leather and animal skulls hanging from hooks in dirty windows, gaunt gothic people trailing into the doors, nervous tourists hovering unsure in the storefront, debating whether the experience is worth the risk. _Don't do it_, Sam wants to tell them,_ it's not all fun and games, it's real. _

She's in one of these shops, this priestess. Concealing herself in plain view. Here she can do that, because here, no one thinks voodoo is anything but ordinary.

"What are we gonna do to her, Dad?" whispers Sam as they walk. His voice is squeaky with puberty and Dean mocks him unfailingly for it. "How can we stop her?"

"Well that's simple, Sammy," answers John patiently. "We take away her powers."

Sam is not entirely sure how they will go about this, but he suspects that it will involve a lot of flashing light and pained indignant shrieking from the priestess and maybe some Latin chants tossed into the mix, just for good measure. He is used to vanquishing rituals by now, has been practicing proper pronunciation of those difficult lyrical Latin words, and he's waiting patiently for his turn at banishing. He might technically have inexperience but he is certainly not unfamiliar with the methodology.

It doesn't take much effort to find her little shop; John knows her by name and he's been asking around. For all her black reputation she is an insignificant little thing, straggly thick twists of unruly auburn hair measuring half the length of her back, unsullied doe eyes blown wide under sharp curious brows. She is maybe half John's height with the help of her boots and she looks as though the extent of her harm goes no longer than the length of the flyswatter hanging over the cash register.

She doesn't know who they are; their reputation doesn't precede them yet. Sam thinks maybe this is a good thing because surprise is on their side. John is all innocence as he goes up to her, radiating charm, that trick that Dean learned years ago but Sam still can't master.

"Sam," hisses Dean beside him, eyes never moving from his father's back, guarding. "Quit looking so damn suspicious. Chill."

"I want to know where the zombies are," says Sam calmly, craning his neck as subtly as he can to see around the priestess, hoping for a hidden room in which she conceals her creations.

"They won't be _here_, dumbass," whispers Dean. "She's not that stupid."

"Then where are they?" asks Sam out loud, impatient.

"My house," says the priestess, before she sends a dagger hurtling towards Sam's face.

Catlike, Sam dodges, heart jackhammering; after that, it's chaos. With a bellow of fury Dean throws himself at the woman, but she is too hasty for him, flattening herself to the ground before he can grab her. There is a dirty, confused scuffle and for a nauseating moment Sam thinks she's going to escape unscathed before John manages to implant a bullet deep into her thigh. Howling, she collapses, and Dean pins her where she falls while John strides over to the door and bolts it.

"Sammy," he says, rough, "you're okay?"

"I'm fine," answers Sam, shocked hollow. Dumbly he trails his father over to where Dean is easily restraining the priestess and the intemperate rage enmeshed in his brother's eyes is what knocks him back into sense.

"Sam," Dean growls, "are you hurt?" Grinding his knee into her stomach until she cries out, all implication:_ you hurt my brother, you die._

"No," says Sam, sounding stronger than he feels. "I'm good. Let's take care of this."

So they do. It's a little bloodier, a little messier than Sam has imagined, but he deduces that the priestess brought such violence down upon her own head and not an ounce of him sympathizes with her.

(Now)

Sam is kicked back in bed, eyes half-mast, watching Dean pull dry jeans over his boxers. It's all he ever does anymore, watch Dean. He thinks he can't complain about spending his days like this, and it's even better when Dean looks back. Tonight he's been doing so with crazy frequency, their eyes grazing playful and slow before Dean turns away, and Sam can't handle it.

He thinks he is being obvious. He also thinks, with this little involuntary smile ghosting across his lips, that he is beyond the point of caring.

They're both still drunk but Sam is coming back to himself enough to recognize that their spontaneous midnight dive into the ocean was a stupidass thing to do. Mutual decision, peeling off their clothes, yelling like they're seventeen and insouciant as they sprint toward the water. Fearless. Alive.

So alive.

Maybe it was something they had to do.

He realizes he's still watching Dean and forces his gaze away.

(Now)

Dean is on fire and for some honest psychotic reason he thinks it's for Sam.

For the way Sam's left leg crooks long over his right knee, for the heavy fall of his eyelids over those magic brown eyes, for his blatancy. For the unnatural, impious eye contact that continuously sparks between them (Dean can add that to the list of Things He Can Only Think About When Wasted) and how Sam's stare makes him feel like the only reality in a world of dreams.

Of course he can't talk about it. Dean can never speak a word of any mess in his heart to Sam; he has to hide emotion for fear of infecting his brother's well-being. He has to be strong or neither of them will so he goes over to the window and splits the curtains, clouds up the warm glass with bitter ethanol breath. Focuses on the stars painted across the sky rather than the ones glittering in his brother's eyes.

"Dean," says Sam, soft behind him. Curious, tender.

"Hmm," murmurs Dean, voice like a misused growl. Hiding the fear that trembles underneath his surface.

"Are you ever gonna tell me what the hell you're thinking?" asks Sam, and he is close. Too close. Every nerve in Dean's body has its hackles raised, screaming, keening.

_Fucked up you're so fucked up you're_

"I'm not thinking anything," laughs Dean, knowing how hazardously thin his act is right now. He can't put on a show when he doesn't know what it is he's trying to fake. He looks at Sam, who hesitates shyly by his right shoulder, but right away discovers he can't actually maintain the gaze so he stitches his eyes to the stars once more.

_so fucked up_.

"You're thinking something," prods Sam gently.

"Oh yeah?" challenges Dean, but his voice is light. "Well, why don't you read my mind then, psychic boy?"

Sam smiles, shuts his eyes briefly. He hates that he has to push Dean to cracking point before he'll talk about anything deeper than the job, the hunt. "You never know," he says. "I can be telekinetic when I need to, why not telepathic?" Moving closer with this rare aggressive insolence that Dean both loves and detests, bulling into his personal space, demanding eye contact. Dean can't deny him (_what else is new?_) but he smirks, glances away briefly, shakes his head.

"So you think popping personal bubbles helps with your mind-reading?"

"Dean," says Sam calmly, ignoring his brother's attempt to laugh it off. "You know I hate when you get like this."

Dean's mouth is Mojave dry and though his smile remains his eyes are wary-huge. "Get like what?"

"All - _evasive_."

Dean smirks. "Here comes Joe College again."

Sam shoves him and Dean rams back and suddenly they're on the floor in a snarling twist of limbs. The stress relief is tangible and Sam is dying for the way they move together, fluent, conjecturing each other's strategies as easily as they could when they were teenagers. It's been a few weeks since they've wrestled and he's missed it on a level that is probably unhealthy.

Dean is bare from the waist up and Sam is looking for any justifiable reason to get territorial hands on him, rough dance of violence punctuated by those blurry hot seconds when Sam's shirt slips and they come flush. During one pause Dean is fairly pinned; growling in vexation he scrapes at Sam's clothes, cheap distraction. Sam doesn't need an excuse deeper than this. He pins Dean's elbows to the ground with his knees, breath coming quick and shaky as he tears off his shirt, eyes never leaving his brother's.

Already Dean is worked up and he can't really take the way Sam is staring at him now, aggressive and goading and brimming with implications that could never be considered brotherly. Dean has taught himself thousands of ways to pretend that tension between them does not exist but when he gets up Sam doesn't make a move to block him in again. Neither of them has blinked. Sam looks like he's having trouble breathing and Dean kinda hopes for this because then he won't be alone.

When Sam reaches out, blind and almost numb, he is controlled by adrenaline and over a decade of caged emotion. One huge hand comes to rest palm-down on Dean's sweaty chest and he pauses there for a moment, waiting to see if his brother will throw him off, but Dean can't even recall his own name so movement is out of the question Slowly, _oh_ how slowly Sam trails his hand down to land curled on Dean's lower stomach. Dean sucks in a breath and his eyes track unbidden down to Sam's raw mouth and time

just

stops.

**Notes:** I had to do it, y'all, I'm sorry! But this is the last cliffhanger, I promise, and next chapter, everything gets solved :D


	5. Chapter 5

**Author Notes**:OH my goodness, I'm so sorry this took me so long. School and life got in the way of any kind of good writing for a while, but finally I'm finished! I hope y'all enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it :)

(Then)

Sam is sick.

Dark canyons smudged ashy under fever-jeweled eyes, hair plastered to his sticky forehead in snarled loops, skin so warm it radiates temperature from inches away. Dean holds ice packs to his brother's head when Sam doesn't complain that he's freezing, but most of the time he just lies quaking under piles of heavy blankets, eyes closed and teeth cracking together as he dreams. His condition seems to plummet daily and Dean has never been this worried.

They are thirteen and seventeen, and of course John is away.

On the third night of Sam's illness Dean starts thinking to himself, for probably the first time ever, that it's acceptable to panic. He sits by the couch so he can get right in Sam's face and speak gently to him, totally unmindful of the fact that he'll probably catch whatever this is, all of his focus centered on Sam's wellness.

"Whatever you want, Sammy," he says over and over. "Just tell me."

All Sam ever wants is Dean, so he's doing just fine with the current arrangement. Occasionally, though, he wants popsicles and soup, so Dean gets them for him, puttering around in the kitchen as best he knows how.

"You're like my little housewife, man," chuckles Sam one day, rasping over a swollen throat.

"Shut up, bitch," gripes Dean, but his voice is tender in a gruff sort of way and he grins back when Sam smirks snarkily at him.

That night Sam is fever-frozen once again and Dean can't take it. Sam can't sleep so obviously he doesn't have a chance in the world and all they do is sit and talk. Sam can't understand how Dean can have such a bottomless supply of tissues and cough drops, but he likes it. He shivers almost without cease.

Sometime in the middle of the night Dean strips off his shirt and climbs into bed next to his little brother. Automatically Sam curls up against him; Dean ropes their arms and legs together and pulls Sam flush against his chest and within a few minutes his shaking has stopped.

"So finally we found a cure," murmurs Sam, right before he crashes into slumber.

Dean has this horrible suspicion that it's not completely natural for him to have such a marked impact, but he deduces that it's the body heat that fixes Sam's temperature imbalance and he drops off to sleep not long after.

Sam spends much of the next day in a delusional twirling haze, thin limbs too heavy to move, mouth too parched to swallow. At some point he recognizes that Dean's voice is joined by another (familiar, deep), and it must be John but then again Sam isn't sure what's real and what's a dream and the next time anything is clear to him he's in a hospital bed.

" - he could have fucking _died_ and you weren't there - "

" - no way I could have known, Dean, I - "

" - hilarious how you think I know what to do when this happens, you told me to - "

" - pneumonia - "

Well, thinks Sam blearily as he succumbs to hypnotic hallucinatory dreams again, that explains a lot.

The next time he surfaces it's two thirty-five in the morning and Dean is dozing on the chair next to him, forehead resting in one open hand, lips split minimally apart, thick eyelashes splayed over bloodless cheeks bleached ghostly in the faint unnatural light. Sam tries to keep his mouth shut and let Dean sleep but he needs to hear his brother's voice.

"Dean."

Within half a second Dean is electrified awake like he's been waiting for Sam's call, eyes blown. "Hey. Hey." All skittish and panicked. "What's wrong? What do you need?"

Sam smiles, cracked lips registering as papercut pain on his skin. "I'm ok. Calm down."

Dean leans over, jumpy, killed by the need to touch Sam and denied by the contrasting command that tells him no. "You've been out for like three days, Sam."

"No, I was awake," says Sam. "Sort of, for a minute. You and Dad were fighting."

"Yeah." Dean's eyes wax dark. "You have really bad pneumonia, Sam. It took him forever to get here. You could have died."

"Where is he now?" asks Sam, shivering icy through his chest upon realizing the severity of his condition.

"The waiting room," replies Dean. "Only one of us can be back in the ICU at once."

"And how often do you let him take your place?" queries Sam, warm thick voice made all gentle with knowing. Expectedly Dean looks down, a chagrined flush of ruby unfurling across his face.

"Not often," he says, raw. "I take care of you."

Sam is undone by the jealous conviction in his words.

(Then)

The day Sam tells Dean he is leaving is gunmetal-gray, the kind of cold that's cruel and dead, and Dean guesses that misery loves company.

This is what he says:

"So you're gonna leave me here with Dad, huh."

This is what he means:

"Please don't go."

It's not like Dean hasn't guessed that Sam could choose a different life. He and John barely cease fighting, can't find even a place for dinner to agree on, and Sam wears this thunderous iron scowl like it's part of his outfit. Dean is being killed by his brother's unhappiness but the alternative - the thought that Sam might be happier without him, on his own - is worse.

Sam's eyes are scared, morose as he tries to get Dean to reciprocate his gaze. "I can't stay here, Dean. I can't take this bullshit from him anymore. I want my own life."

"Yeah, well." Dean refuses to give Sam the satisfaction of eye contact. If he moves he thinks he might scream or burst into tears or throttle his brother and that look that Sam is giving him is just too much. "You're not gonna get that here. So you better go, if that's what you want."

"Dean - " Sam sounds like he is wholly broken, open agony wounding his words.

"I know, Sam," growls Dean, but he pushes roughly past his brother still rebuffing his gaze, eyebrows knotted darkly and lips clenched together in anger. Severe self-control and he makes it out of the room without another word.

(_don't leave me_)

Because that's exactly what it feels like.

(Then)

Dean gets two days to process Sam's looming departure; John gets one. The argument that follows Sam's confession shatters the earth, shakes out the clouds, claws scars into Dean's mind. He doesn't have to look at Sam to know his brother's heart is a mess.

John won't go to the bus stop with his sons; he is all defiance, enraged. He barely looks at Sam when he walks out the door and Dean is sick of doing damage control. Neither of them can speak on the drive that will change their lives, although Dean imagines a thousand ways to ask Sam to stay. He'll never do it.

Standing together, leaning against the driver's side of the Impala, thinking mountains and valleys full of words but unable to speak any of them except:

"Hot today."

"Yep."

It's the most impossible goodbye either of them has had to say, so they don't. Dean alternates between counting the clouds (six, or seven if he includes that tiny gossamer fluffball hovering near the sun) and perusing the road for any sign of the bus. He gets the frantic, uncomfortable sensation that Sam keeps looking at him out of the edges of his eyes but staunchly rejects the urge to look back. He thinks they should probably be speaking to each other, about _anything_, but he can't even breathe and Sam against him is shaking so hard the zipper on his coat keeps smacking against the cold handle of the Impala's passenger side door.

When the bus, an innocent unwieldy rectangle that promises to change lives in one way or another, does finally pull up, Dean is ninety percent sure his heart actually stops. Sam goes to pick up his backpack but Dean grabs his wrist, his fingers a scalding bracelet on Sam's skin, and he gives his younger brother the eye contact he's been begging for.

"Dean," begins Sam, but Dean shakes his head violently back and forth, makes this strangled agonized noise in his throat, and Sam shuts up and reaches for him. They clutch at each other ferociously for a moment, Sam's hands splayed on Dean's back, his mouth open and wet on Dean's throat before Dean shoves him away, still gripping fistfuls of his brother's jacket in his hands. The misery eating at the shine in Sam's eyes is enough to render Dean sober for days.

"Sam, just fuck," spits Dean, and Sam understands then that his older brother is being absolutely murdered by the compulsion to beg him to stay. He also realizes, with a nauseating downward drift of his heart, that Dean's pride will never allow him to do it. It's a shame because that request is the one thing that would make Sam think twice about this, his monumental (reckless?) decision.

"You're the only thing I'm going to miss," whispers Sam, his voice crackling on the last word, and he ducks in and slides his forehead tenderly across Dean's before he tosses his bag over his shoulder and walks away.

From the window of the bus he watches his brother until he can't anymore, fingers crashed up against the dirty pane, weak defeated chant looping through his thoughts: _don't blink don't cry don't blink don't cry_ until his mind is anesthetized. Then he spends the entire drive convincing himself that the best thing he will ever do for either of them is get away. Because no man should feel things for his brother like Sam does for Dean.

By the time Sam steps onto Stanford's campus he has talked himself into never going back. The problem is he doesn't think he's ever going to find a cure for the venomous knee-bringing desolation that is Dean's absence.

(Now)

Dean says Sam's name and his voice is in pieces, husky fervid growl grinding from his throat, almost a plea. Sam wishes for nothing more than to be able to speak the language of his brother's emotion but he figures he's come this far and he's already known more loss than most people can even _survive_ so what the hell.

"What," he rasps back, bossing forward just a little so their noses almost brush. "What, Dean."

"Sam, we're drunk," says Dean, but he's not moving, and the downward pull of Sam's fingers keeps intensifying.

Sam laughs, genuine mirth that sends surprise scurrying across Dean's saucer eyes. "You always say that when I do this."

"Do what?" demands Dean, muted urgency, and any pause is too long. "Do what, Sam?"

Sam swallows the dryness in his mouth, shakes his head as he gets on his knees, pulling Dean up with him. Frames his brother's face with his huge hands, never takes his eyes from Dean's perpetual pout of a mouth. "Touch you."

Dean's stomach throbs with that creeping, consuming heat, and his mind is screaming for him to _back the fuck up right now_ but he's overriding it because he can't move. Sam is all he is, all he thinks and breathes and eats and sleeps. Without Sam Dean doesn't exist, and it's always going to be that way.

Sam's hands are pawing at Dean's chest, sliding lower again, and he's whispering something frantic that Dean can't make out. It's only when Sam's hand drops to hook in the waistband of his jeans that Dean understands what he's saying.

_Can I?_

If he wanted to Dean couldn't speak so he bulls forward into Sam's space, cupping the angular ridge of Sam's bristly jaw, and Sam understands that this is permission. He groans a little in jubilation as his hand works its way between his brother's legs, rubbing and squeezing and Dean is losing his mind after five seconds, obsessed with the idea that Sam is getting off on this as much as he is. Sam's voice in his ear, _yes Dean yes yes yes_ as he works him through denim and cloth, firm controlling like they've done this a thousand times and he can take care of everything at once. Dean is choking on Sam's name, reaching between them to unbutton his jeans, and Sam drags them roughly off his hips, doesn't even bother to tease. Unabashedly he frees his brother's cock and his rhythm is sure, bold, hot teasing thumb curling over the unbelievable slickness of the slit as he bites into Dean's throat. Somehow he is the furthest thing from shy.

Dean is going to last for all of a minute.

Abruptly his ability to speak graces him again and he buries his mouth in Sam's neck, "Yeah man right there oh _Jesus_ do that again," and Sam growls back at him, something like _fuck yes_, _fucking come for me Dean_ and oh God he does, blistering hot orgasm quaking through his veins and the only thing in his mind is Sam. Sam's shoulder in his mouth, Sam's fingers snared in his sweaty hair, Sam's body all curled close to his as Dean comes all over his brother's hand.

"_Yes_," Sam rasps, rucking his forehead against Dean's, and Dean thinks he says _baby_ but he isn't sure because the quintessential functions of his mind have wholly ceased. His fists are bunched around the fabric of Sam's shorts and he's breathing like he just sprinted a mile and he honestly isn't sure what the fuck anymore except that Sam feels more right against him than anything he has ever known.

They sit and they breathe and Sam is so scared that Dean is going to bolt, disappear for the night and come back tomorrow with all emotion in his dark eyes erased, acting like nothing has changed. He keeps his clean hand bunched around his brother's shoulder and lets Dean sink back down to sanity and after a few moments of peace the rabbit pulse of Dean's heartbeat slows to some semblance of equilibrium.

It's been enough time that Sam trusts in his brother's stability, knows he won't try to flee, and he relaxes the claw-grip he has on Dean's arm. Lets his fingers swipe timidly over the firm landscape of Dean's collarbones, flutters his gaze over the soft open fall of his brother's wrecked mouth. Dean hasn't moved his forehead away from Sam's but he won't raise his eyes from the point they're fixated on, somewhere low, some sight he doesn't really absorb. Sam wants to talk but he's afraid to murder the moment.

Finally Dean brings his hands up to cup Sam's face, thumbs smoothing the harsh blades of his brother's high enunciated cheekbones, flawless symmetry. He is five hundred kinds of fucked up over the joy that is flooding his bloodstream for this, for the swell of contentment ballooning upward through his chest. If he was normal he'd want to throw up. If he was normal he wouldn't have come close to even thinking about this ever happening, ever. But the truth is he's been tossing the notion abstractly around in his brain since he was a kid, since he figured out that it's Sam and Sam alone who is the only certainty in his life.

"Sammy," he says gently, voice all raw-husked with emotion, and Sam infers every single thing that Dean cannot yet verbalize from that one word. He's good at that. After all he's lived his whole life learning how to solve the most difficult pieces of Dean's puzzle.

(Now)

So many details that neither of them has previously been allowed to notice and now they are realizing every little scrap: the way Sam's fingers curl beautifully around Dean's; how Dean is the perfect height to tuck his chin into Sam's shoulder when they are pressed close. Dean grumbles about this, makes out like he hates it and wishes he was the giant of the two, but Sam knows by the little smile lurking across his mouth that he is a liar. They hunch cross-legged on the bed canvassing fingerprint maps over each other's faces, Sam's angel bones and Dean's gorgeous mouth. Their earlier haste was every bit of necessary but now they understand that they can back off, stroll instead of sprint, and right now all Dean wants is to sit with his brother and taste the warm comfortable honey of his breath and learn every secret of his face that distance has veiled from him.

"There's probably something wrong with us," Sam whispers as he races the back of his knuckles down his brother's cheek.

Dean grins a little, snickers, and his eyes never budge from where they are memorizing the pinked arch of Sam's lower lip. "Pretty sure it comes with the last name."

"I mean, I like it," says Sam, and Dean laughs genuinely then, sort of hating himself for how easily he can be brought to mirth now, for how he feels like nothing can go wrong tonight - or ever, really.

"Sam," he says, low. "What does this change?"

Sam draws back a little so he can dig deep into his brother's gaze, reassure him. He is in shock that they are even discussing what has happened between them because Dean just _doesn't_, and he knows he has to tread with caution because he wants this, wants to be comfortable enough to discuss what is transpiring between them.

"Nothing," he says, like _obviously_. "Except there's hopefully going to be a hell of a lot less weird tension between us now."

"I'll drink to that," says Dean immediately, coaxing an answering grin to Sam's mouth, and there are those dimples again and Dean sort of wants to bash his head against the wall but at the same time kiss every inch of that smile and it's making his nerves crackle with indecision. He has grown accustomed to blocking himself on every level when it comes to the way he thinks about Sam and it's unsettling to finally have permission.

Sometime in the night their nothing-everything conversation melds into easy silence, and after that what else is there to do but give in. Dean figures it's his round to take the initiative and his mouth on Sam's is silken, shy, flawless. Sam has spent much of his free time dreaming about the taste of Dean's lips and damn if it hasn't been worth the wait, the way Dean kisses first his lower lip, then his upper lip, slides his tongue down between Sam's teeth and his cheek and licks into his mouth. They should by all accounts be unsure of themselves but maybe for sheer consuming need they are not; Sam grabs Dean's face and surges into him, kisses back like his brother's mouth is opium and he's an addict, deprived for upward of a decade. The way they move together is uncanny, slick battle of tongues that starts and restarts as dominance swaps between them. Maybe Sam is just being sappy but this feels like completion, feels like something he's been building up to his entire life, because who else in the entire world understands every shard of his core like Dean? Who else would he die for a thousand times and not think twice about the sacrifice? Not even John. Never has there been such unquestioning loyalty between two people as Sam and Dean Winchester.

Dean rises to his haunches, cajoles Sam up with him, big hands over his little brother's shoulders as they draw flush. Sam's heat is the kind that blossoms from the core and Dean can smell his hunger, taste it, feel it in the way Sam's hands clench around Dean's hips, the ragged pant of his breath when they surface for air. Nudging persistently to the front of Dean's mind is the knowledge that Sam has been left unsatisfied and he knows that this must be remedied. The younger man has been so patient for so so long.

That kind of dedication deserves recompense.

Dean lets his hands rove up the nape of Sam's neck, knots his fingers in the damp twists of soft hair there, keeps his eyes locked on the kiss-bruised pout of Sam's open mouth. Foreheads pressed urgently together as Dean brings his brother's exhale deep into his lungs on a breath, so near, so intimate, both of their eyes inked preternaturally black with lust and Sam is going crazy. When Dean ducks in to lick into the heat of his mouth he whines and threads the fingers of both of his huge hands through his brother's hair, yanks him closer. Dean seizes upon this opportunity, counters Sam's momentum and shoves him back, so forceful Sam bounces when he hits the pillow. In half the time it takes to blink he rallies and growling pulls Dean down to him, hitch punched into his breath when Dean situates a leg on either side of Sam's narrow hips. This is what Dean is accustomed to, dominance, and Sam tastes the satisfaction in the smirk that he bites from his older brother's mouth.

"Control freak."

"You love it," rasps Dean, angling his head so he can suck his way down Sam's beautiful bared throat, mark him. By the morning there will be a bloom of violent vibrant lilac-gray marring Sam's neck and that is the way they both like it; nonetheless, Dean glosses apologetically over the angry open skin with his tongue before he moves back up to Sam's mouth. The younger man's hands are claw-tense on Dean's back, fingernails carving crescents into smooth skin and maybe Sam isn't as gentle as his demeanor would suggest. Dean gets a knee between both of Sam's and slides up, explores until he can feel _every_thing; Sam lets his head drop back, groans for the perfect friction, bucks his hips into the contact. His eyelashes drip prettily onto golden freckle-scattered cheeks and his trembling stomach is all contours and ridges and symmetry and Dean is so hard for him again, for the way his hipbones arrow up into his skin, for the stripe of black hair that trails down into his jeans. Dean thinks he could taste Sam everywhere now and it wouldn't be enough, thinks there is no way they are going to be able to conceal this unleashed hunger from the public, doesn't care. Sam's breath is hot and unsteady and surely they are steaming up the windows.

Maybe on another day, some foggy crystal-ball afternoon in the future, Dean will build this up until Sam is rent, pleading, powerless, but tonight he can do nothing but take early pity for the total need in his little brother's eyes. One hand pushes Sam's sweaty curls roughly back from his fevered forehand while the other crawls down to replace the void that he has left by withdrawing his knee from between Sam's thighs. Instantly Sam is squirming and he gets his thumbs curled through the belt loops of his brother's jeans and Dean understands, reaches down to unbutton, but Sam beats him to it so Dean goes to work on Sam instead. An indecently quick amount of time and they are free, rucking together with only two parchment-thin pieces of silken material between them, and Sam's blood has turned to lightning, live flickering wires in his veins. His fingers search up Dean's side and the older man grabs his hand, laces it with his own so slowly. The movement is one of such beauty and momentousness that Sam shudders for it. Dean isn't the most verbose individual but he is proficient at getting his point across when he wants to.

The thing that will always stand out the most to Sam when he looks back on this night: the way Dean stares into his eyes as he works Sam's boxers off his arching hips. Focused, somber, tender like he has been blind forever and Sam is the first thing he sees upon being graced with sight. Sam pulls him down and crashes their lips together and Dean's hand wriggles between them and then he's curling it around Sam's cock and Sam can't breathe, kiss disconnected by the abrupt gorgeous moan that spills from his mouth. It's perfect but it's not enough, he wants everything, so he yanks at Dean's shorts and after a brief scramble they are skin-to-skin all over and neither of them can really take it. Dean collapses onto Sam's chest and paints kisses all over his neck, his collarbones, his wet wet mouth. All of Sam's mind is centered around the sensation of absolute closeness: it has never been like this with anyone, never been so comfortable or right. The fact that this feeling of completion has been reached with Dean, with his own honest-to-God flesh-and-blood _brother_ could fuck with his head for days but he forgets about it because he always does, because they're Sam and Dean and there's been something not quite right about their relationship, about their _dynamic_, for a long time. Of course this wouldn't be any different. Maybe it would be strange if itwas.

Dean is up on all fours now, still angled so he can keep his mouth pressed to Sam's, but his hand has found its way back between his brother's legs and Sam feels thirteen again, minutes away from climax instantaneously. But Dean has to play a little and he smoothes the backs of his fingernails over Sam's balls, daubs precome down his aching pulsing cock until it's almost covered and Sam is _purring_. Dean feels his stomach clench for how flawless Sam looks, how vulnerable, and he can't take it as much as Sam can't, has to get him off and see his face when he comes. Sam gasps for the unanticipated friction, eyes flying wide, and Dean is magnetized to him. Infatuated, awestruck, wordless.

"Dean."

"Mm." Rough, merely a notch above broken rasp.

Sam throws his head, tense all over with the pleasure, but he forces himself to master it so he can speak, fingers dancing up the warm muscled interior of Dean's thigh. Involuntary groan of "_fuck_," but the next thing he says is intentional. "Can I - again?"

For all the world Dean can't understand why Sam still thinks he needs permission; they are clearly gonna have to work that out of his system, but at the moment the thought of both of them getting off _together_ is enough to make Dean's eyes turn briefly, minimally back into his head and it's all he cares about. The growl he gives in response is near inhuman, feral. "Sammy, Jesus fucking Christ. _Yes_."

Through Sam's eyes an ephemeral splash of triumph streaks; he reaches up for Dean's cock, swollen and sore pressed against his belly, and Dean will never understand how Sam's palm against him already feels familiar. He doesn't hold it against himself. It's hard to understand _anything_ now.

Sam leans up and they kiss, sucking-deep for a long moment before Dean pushes him back, rucks his forehead gently across his brother's own. "Wanna look at you," he says, gruff, so Sam smiles and lies back. The intensity of their eye contact is too much and he's shaking trying to postpone his orgasm, so set on waiting for Dean, but he can't, toes curving painfully, biting down on his lower lip as his body trembles through the rush of impossible ecstasy. He screws up his eyes and crushes Dean's hand and Dean makes this _noise_, this heavy shattered whine, so deep and probably it's for the fact that Sam is coming all over his brother's stomach in thick hot milky splotches. Their eyes meet; Sam is proud that he can even function enough to keep stroking Dean off, but no way is he going to stop because Dean is shaking and _iron_ hard and Sam knows he is close. Leaning down the elder man skips his mouth over Sam's in a shadowy emulation of a kiss; Sam bites down on Dean's lower lip and that is all he can withstand. He cries out, shuddering, and suddenly Sam's hand is warm and sticky with his brother's seed.

Together they breathe, recover, rejoin reality. The way Dean kisses Sam, opening his mouth just so he can close it over his little brother's upper lip again and again, is the only thing that keeps Sam from chalking the whole night up to a fantasy, something idly imagined to keep him happy during the thousands of miles spent folded up in the Impala.

Later, washed clean and lying as near to one another as they can under a solitary thin chill sheet, Dean's front pressed to Sam's back with their limbs twined. Dean is blurs and smudges, drowsing, but Sam's mind is running marathons. The curtains are parted slightly and a skinny slant of mischievous silver light steals into the room, brightens a slice of Sam's face. He smiles. It is only fitting that there should be a full moon on this most life-changing of nights.

*********


End file.
